THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 LA JOLU, CALIFORNIA
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 3 1822 00317 3218 
 
 P, 
 
 
 I '3 
 
 lA >
 
 A NEW DRAMA 
 iUn Drama Nuevo)
 
 A NEW DRAMA 
 
 (Un Drama Nuevo) 
 
 A Tragedy in Three Acts 
 
 FROM THE SPANISH OF 
 
 DON MANUEL TAMAYO Y BAUS 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 JOHN DRISCOLL FITZ-GERALD, Ph.D. 
 
 Member of The Hispanic Society of America; 
 
 Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy; 
 
 Department of Romance Languages, University of Illinois 
 
 THACHER ROWLAND GUILD, A.M. 
 Associate in English, University of Illinois 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 JOHN DRISCOLL FITZ-GERALD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 1915
 
 Copyright, 1915, by 
 John Driscoll Fitz-Gerald 
 
 AND 
 
 Lois Greene Guild
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF 
 
 THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA 
 
 No. 90
 
 TO 
 THACHER HOWLAND GUILD
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This translation of Un Drama Nuevo by Spain's 
 greatest modern dramatist was made during the winter 
 and spring of 1914. It was a work of love in more 
 senses than one. Mr. Guild had a deep interest in all 
 dramatic literature. Ilis life work was to study not only 
 its artistic beauty in the domain of Belles-Lettres, but 
 also its technique and its value as a moral force. I was 
 interested in Spanish literature and in spreading among 
 our people a wider knowledge of Spanish culture. Both 
 of us were profoundly impressed with this particular 
 work and Avished to make it more available for our 
 compatriots. And by doing this piece of work together 
 we hoped to draw closer the bonds of friendship that 
 already united us. This last object we attained. 
 
 Thacher Howland Guild, son of an old New Eng- 
 land family and graduate of Brown, was one of those 
 rare men of prepossessing personality who upon closer 
 acquaintance prove to be even better than our expecta- 
 tions. Among his colleagues and students he exerted a 
 quiet yet strong influence for righteousness, without 
 ever descending to preachments. So much was this the
 
 ".ase that a keen observer of this community's academic 
 life characterized him as ''uot a member of the English 
 Department or of the College of Liberal Arts and Sci- 
 ences, but a benevolent institution upon the campus of 
 the University of Illinois". By all who came into con- 
 tact with him he was recognized as an aristocrat without 
 arrogance, a Christian without cant. 
 
 One of the bright and inspiring memories of my 
 life is the recollection of the happ}^ hours we spent 
 together over this work, and the many fleeting, illumi- 
 nating glimpses that 1 had into his pure soul and 
 brilliant mind. I miss him. During the summer of 
 1914 he went to his reward, and the ])Ook that we had 
 hoped to publish together becomes in a sense his own 
 memorial. 
 
 J. D. F-G. 
 June 1, 1915. 
 Urbana, Illinois, U. S. A.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dedication vii 
 
 Foreword ix 
 
 Introduction xiii 
 
 A New Drama _ - 1 
 
 Characters 3 
 
 Act One ._ - - 5 
 
 Act Two 63 
 
 Act Three 109
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "To rise by dint of sheer merit to the most honor- 
 able positions; to give universal satisfaction while one 
 holds them; to write works that delight and astonish 
 both on the stage and in the quiet of the study; to 
 enjoy that rarest of pleasures, posthumous glory in 
 one's lifetime; and to die taking with one the entire 
 affection of a cultured nation and the tears of those 
 who were one's friends: this is indeed extraordinary 
 fortune, fortune seldom granted to mortals."^ 
 
 Such was, however, the fortune of Manuel Tamayo y 
 Bans, who was born in Madrid, September 15, 1829, of 
 a family distinguished on both sides in the annals of 
 the stage. Of his two brothers, Andres was a play right, 
 and Victorino, besides being a writer, was an eminent 
 actor, who ably seconded Manuel by playing roles in 
 some of the latter 's dramas, and especially by creating 
 the difficult role of Yorick, in JJn Drama Nuevo. Their 
 father, Jose Tamayo, was a star actor, and manager of 
 
 IE. Cotarelo y Mori, Historia Hteraria. Madrid, 1901, 
 Tomo, I, 363.
 
 a company of his own, that performed in Madrid and 
 in some of the provincial capitals. His mother, Joaquina 
 Bans y Ponce de Leon, was a brilliant actress, who 
 interpreted leading roles in several companies, including 
 her husband's, and was renowned for her beauty, her 
 virtue, and her artistic talent. Her father, Francisco 
 Bans, was for many years director of companies playing 
 chiefly in Murcia and Cartagena. Her sister, Teresa 
 Baus y Ponce de Leon, did only minor roles, but was 
 famous in native Spanish dances; whereas her half- 
 sister, Antera Baus y Laborda (by her father's first 
 marriage, with the well-known actress Ventura Laborda) 
 was really celebrated. We have not exhausted his the- 
 atrical pedigree, but this will suffice to show that Manuel 
 Tamayo y Baus inherited and came naturally by his 
 theatrical instincts. 
 
 His early life was passed in this same atmosphere, 
 travelling about the provinces when the company moved 
 from one city to another. They lived for a long time 
 in Granada, which was then one of Spain 's most brilliant 
 capitals. Here the stage-manager was his father, the 
 leading actress his mother, and the impresario his future 
 father-in-law, Jose Maiquez. Here, too, young Manuel 
 met and began a life-long friendship with three distin- 
 guished men of letters, Aureliauo Fernandez-Guerra y 
 Orbe, Luis Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe, and Manuel
 
 Canete, who always spoke of Tairiayo as their younger 
 brother. 
 
 The life of Tamayo y Baus was simple and modest, 
 and is easily told. In 1849, the day before he was twenty 
 years of age, he married Emilia (whom he always called 
 Araalia) Maiquez, who was a year his senior. She 
 proved to be just the kind of wife he needed, and their 
 married life was a perpetual honey-moon. Three years 
 later he lost his mother, in the plenitude of her life, 
 beauty, and renown. His profound grief was delicately 
 expressed later that same year in the dedication to his 
 play Angela : "To thee who lovedst me so much on 
 earth ; to thee who now from Heaven dost watch o 'er 
 thy son. Manuel." 
 
 He was given a position in one of the ministries by 
 his distant relative Antonio Gil y Zarate ; and his work 
 there was such that he was promoted by Candido Noce- 
 dal. He was dismissed by the Revolution of 1854. 
 
 The Royal Spanish Academy of the Language, oldest 
 and proudest of Spain's academies, in 1858 elected 
 Tamayo to succeed the recently deceased Juan Gonzalez 
 Cabo-Reluz as occupant of chair 0. He took possession 
 thereof and was welcomed thereto by his old friend 
 Aureliano Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe, June 12 of the 
 next year. 
 
 After having served awhile as Head of the Library 
 of San Isidro, he was again dismissed by a revolution :
 
 that of 1868. But better days were coming for this 
 man who, with all his modesty, was the greatest dramat- 
 ist in Spain in the nineteenth century. In 1874 he was 
 elected Perpetual Secretary of the Royal Spanish Acad- 
 emy, and went, as his new office required, to live within 
 the Academy. One of the great joys of this new position 
 was the fact that it brought him so near to his old friend 
 Fernandez-Guerra, who, as Perpetual Librarian, also 
 had his home in the Academy. 
 
 It was not until 1884, however, that Tamayo re- 
 ceived his greatest tribute from the nation that he had 
 honored and served. One of the brightest pages in the 
 life of that brilliant statesman and diplomat Alejandro 
 Pidal y Mon is the story of how King Alfonso XII, and 
 the Prime Minister, Antonio Canovas del Castillo (under 
 whom Pidal was Minister of Public Works), were per- 
 suaded to appoint Tamayo to the exalted position of 
 Director of the National Library, and Chief of the Board 
 of Archivists, Librarians, and Antiquarians; and of 
 how Pidal then had to persuade Tamayo to accept the 
 post. 
 
 In 1878 he had rededicated to his wife his great 
 play La Locura de Amor, in these words: 
 
 "Twenty-three years ago I dedicated to thee this 
 work, lacking in merit, like all of mine, but not lacking 
 in fortune. It has been translated into Portuguese,
 
 French, Italian, and German, and it still continues to be 
 played successfully in Spanish theatres. 
 
 "When I dedicated it to thee I extolled thy vir- 
 tues ; from that day to this thou hast lived only to con- 
 tinue giving evidence of boundless goodness, supernatu- 
 ral courage, and saintly abnegation. I told thee then 
 that my love and respect would never fail thee : I did 
 not deceive thee. 
 
 "Amalia, my wife, angelic nurse to my parents, 
 and to the children of my brothers, God grant that thou 
 mayst do for me what I have seen thee do for others; 
 God grant me the happiness of dying in thine arms. — 
 Manuel." 
 
 This wish was granted twenty years later, when on 
 June 20, 1898, after more than a year of intense suffer- 
 ing borne with Christian fortitude, he went to his long 
 rest. 
 
 Tamayo's dramaturgic activities began early. Lay- 
 ing aside all legendary stories that refer to still more 
 youthful performances, we have unquestionable evidence 
 that a work by him (a translation or adaptation of 
 Genevieve de Brahant) was successfully staged at Gra- 
 nada in 1841, when he was in his eleventh year. The 
 incident was related by Aureliano Fernandez-Guerra y
 
 Orbe in the discourse with which he welcomed Tamayo 
 to the Spanish Academy : 
 
 "Eighteen years ago, at the first performance of an 
 interesting drama, well-suited to our stage, the public 
 of Granada insisted that the author of the adaptation 
 and the actress who had so marvelously interpreted the 
 title-role should come before the curtain and receive 
 their well-earned ovation. It was a touching sight when 
 the curtain rose, to see Joaquina Baus, that rare prodigy 
 of talent and beauty, almost overwhelmed and clasping 
 to her breast her little son, the new genius, whose face 
 was still so childlike that he seemed not yet to have 
 grown beyond the angelic hours of infancy." 
 
 He was widely read in the ancient and modern 
 classics and the effects thereof are evidenced in many 
 ways throughout the whole of his works: in his earlier 
 days, by translations and adaptations, or by works 
 whose germinal idea he acknowledges he received from 
 foreign authors; and in his later days, by his sobriety 
 of expression, wealth of vocabulary, and classicism of 
 form and style. These qualities, coupled with the ro- 
 mantic fire and chivalrous temper that were his as a 
 Spaniard, and the deep piety that was his as a man, 
 made his work unique on the Spanish stage. 
 
 Although not performed until 1847, his Juana de 
 Arco must have been written about the same time as
 
 Genoveva de Brabante, for in the dedication to his par- 
 ents he calls it his "first literary effort". It is an 
 imitation of Schiller's Jvngfrau von Orleans, and is so 
 acknowledged on the title page. It must be admitted 
 also that the original is handled with the utmost freedom. 
 
 His first original drama, El Cinco de Agosto, ap- 
 peared in 1849. It was a deplorable specimen of the 
 most lugubrious romanticism, and has been called 
 Tamayo's first and last mistake. 
 
 After several pieces of minor importance, some 
 original, others translations, he presented, in 1852, the 
 much discussed drama Angela. In the prologue the 
 author acknowledges that he took the germinal idea from 
 Schiller's Kahale und Liehe, and that certain situations 
 of the German piece reappear in the Spanish. But he 
 feels that because of the essential differences that exist, 
 his drama must be called original. After such a frank 
 avowal of indebtedness, some critics seem chagrined not 
 to find the two works more nearly alike and then pro- 
 ceed to condemn the Spanish work on all the points of 
 difference. This seems hardly fair to Angela, which, 
 despite one particularly noteworthy fault of construc- 
 tion (the mixing of the poison, which no one drinks), 
 is effective and interesting. I do not mean to imply that 
 I consider it anywhere near the equal of Kahale und 
 Liehe. Quite the contrary. Schiller's work is much
 
 stronger, much more dramatic. Furthermore, the inter- 
 est attaching to Kabale und Liebe as a document of 
 cultural history is wholly absent from Angela. 
 
 Virginia, an attempt at modernizing the classic 
 tragedy, appeared in 1853, and made as much of a 
 furore in Spain as did Hugo's Hernani in France, 
 twentj^-three years earlier. Despite the contradictory 
 opinions that were expressed about the play (and things 
 went so far that duels were fought), Virginia was al- 
 ways the author's favorite; and during his later years 
 he worked assiduously at a revision to make its style 
 even more perfect. 
 
 His first attempt at an historical drama was La 
 Bica-hembra, written in collaboration with his friend 
 Fernandez-Guerra. It appeared in 1854, and treated 
 the well-known legend of the noble lady, Juana de 
 Mendoza, who disdained all her suitors, until one of 
 them one day slapped her face in public. Him she 
 married, so that it might not be said that any one but 
 her husband had slapped her. 
 
 The next important play of our author. La Locura 
 de Amor, appeared the following year (1855) and is 
 by some critics considered his masterpiece. The subject 
 is the madness of Juana la Loca, the daughter of Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella. Tamayo for the purposes of the 
 character-development of Juana accepts as historical
 
 the madness of the Queen, and then makes that madness 
 evolve out of her love and jealousy for her husband 
 Philip the Beautiful, who gave her little cause for the 
 former sentiment and only too much for the latter. The 
 delicate shading in his portrayal of the gradual devel- 
 opment of this mania is marvelously done. The his- 
 toricity of this theory that Juana's madness was due 
 to her love and jealousy was distinctly open to question 
 when Tamayo used it. But just as Jules Verne in his 
 Twenty TJiousand Leagues Under the Sea described in 
 minute detail submarines a quarter of a century before 
 there were any, so Tamayo divined psychologically, 
 from what works he had at hand, a truth that was 
 scientifically demonstrated by the historians nearly forty 
 years later.^ 
 
 The discourse read by Tamayo when he took his seat 
 in the Spanish Academy (1859) treated of Truth as the 
 Fountain of Beauty in Dramatic Literature. In devel- 
 oping that thesis he did not use the word truth in the 
 modern naturalistic sense, nor did he consider all truth 
 artistic, as will be seen from the following passages : 
 "Not all that is true in the world is suited to the 
 theatre. The scenic fiction will cease to be beautiful, 
 and will sin by falseness when it represents the unusual 
 
 ^Aivtonio Rodriguez Villa, La Reina Dona Juana la Loca. 
 Estudio historico. Madrid, 1892.
 
 and not the natural, the exception and not the rule ; in 
 lieu of characters, caricatures; monsters instead of pas- 
 sionate men ; when it paints with minute exactness, 
 rather than the movements of the soul, the movements 
 of the flesh, submerging, so to speak, spirit in matter; 
 when instead of reproducing only the purest, most 
 essential and most poetic in nature, it takes from her 
 only what is coarse, unsubstantial, and prosaic. * * * * 
 What is of supreme importance in dramatic literature 
 is to proscribe from its domain every kind of impurity, 
 capable of staining the soul of the spectators ; and, em- 
 ploying the bad only as a means and the good always 
 as an end, to give to each its real coloring with due 
 regard for the dictates of conscience and the eternal 
 laws of Divine Justice." 
 
 This sounds ultra-modern, and yet it was written 
 nearly sixty years ago. By instinct Tamayo had never 
 transgressed the principles he here professed ; but as h*^ 
 grew in experience he improved in technique and power, 
 and his reception into the Academy serves as the divid- 
 ing line between his earlier and his later method, perhaps 
 because the preparation of this discourse had forced him 
 to pause, so to speak, and to take account of stock. To 
 this second period belong, besides several minor pieces, 
 three dramas of great importance, all produced under 
 the nom de plume of Joaquin Estebanez.
 
 The germinal idea of Lo Positivo (1862) was taken 
 from Leon Laya's Lc due Job, and this is frankly 
 acknowledged in the notice published at the beginning 
 of the play. But in addition to the fact that the char- 
 acters are entirely Spanish, the independence of the 
 Spanish play is amply proven by the circumstance that 
 the French play's eleven characters, four acts, and fifty 
 scenes, are reduced by Tamayo to four characters, three 
 acts, and twenty-four scenes. It treats effectively the 
 money question in one of its most rej^ellent forms, ava- 
 rice in a woman's soul. Despite the anonymity of the 
 production it was unusually successful and had a long 
 run. It is so well constructed that some critics, even 
 among those that are hardest to please, declare that it 
 has no structural defects. Despite these qualities, Lo 
 Positivo does not seem destined to survive permanently. 
 
 Not so, in the case of the great play against duel- 
 ling: Lances de Honor (1863). It is doubtful if duelling 
 has ever been more effectively arraigned as a pest in 
 /society. The scenes are wonderfully telling and follow 
 one another in breathless succession. The play is very 
 compact and the first two acts seem well nigh beyond 
 improvement, as does also most of the third act; but 
 some critics find fault with what they call ''excessive 
 insistence upon the moral lesson ' ' that the work teaches. 
 This criticism does not appeal to me. From the stand- 
 point of dramatic construction, however, there is in this
 
 third act, brief as it is, one serious defect: the sudden 
 appearance of the crazed girl whose father was stabbed 
 on this same spot a year ago in a duel such as is fought 
 among the lower classes, and whose mother, crazed by 
 the incident, died shortly afterward, leaving the young 
 girl an orphan. Her appearance is nowhere prepared in 
 the earlier parts of the drama. That it is impressive is 
 beyond doubt : it is terrific even in the reading, and 
 contemporary critics relate that the audiences were lit- 
 erally filled with terror at the scene. As in dramatic 
 productions effectiveness is what is sought, it is an open 
 question whether any thing so effective as this ought on 
 merely structural grounds to be called a defect. 
 
 But Tamayo was to attain still greater heights, and 
 after a period of silence he produced what by most 
 critics is considered his greatest work : Un Drama Nuevo 
 (1867). Here we have indeed a tragedy happening in 
 connection with a legitimate love-affair. Alice and 
 Edmund, as young people, fall in love with each other 
 but do not declare their love. Edmund has been rescued 
 from beggary and adopted by Yorick, who later furnishes 
 comforts of all kinds for Alice's sick mother. Alice 
 yields to her mother's dying prayer that she marry 
 Yorick, who loves her and is so good. Alice and Edmund 
 strive hard to live up to duty in the terrible situation
 
 that has been thrust upou tliein all unwittingly by the 
 man whom they both love. One night while playing the 
 title-roles of Romeo and Juliet, they make their mutual 
 declaration in the very words of the play itself. There- 
 after growing remorse and constant efforts to dominate 
 their love fill their lives. Shakespeare and Walton both 
 discover the secret. The former believes them when 
 they assure him they have not yielded to their love ; and 
 promises to help them to win their battle over self. 
 Walton, whose wife had deceived him, believes them 
 guilty of the worst, and, to avenge himself on Yorick 
 for taking from him the great tragic role in a new play, 
 plans to prove to Yorick that Alice and Edmund are 
 false to him. Edmund in terror tries to save Alice and 
 writes her of his plan to flee with her to a foreign coun- 
 try. Alice refuses to "make irremediable the evil" and 
 determines to stay with Yorick despite her love for 
 Edmund, whose letter she is about to burn when Walton 
 seizes it for the purpose of presenting it to Yorick. The 
 "new drama" that they have been rehearsing has a 
 situation exactly like their own, and the last scene shows 
 all the actors playing double roles which are none the 
 less identical. As an example of the welding of the 
 play within the play it has never been surpassed. As 
 just said, all the characters in the play we have been 
 reading or seeing, are playing identical roles in the play
 
 about which they have been talking and which they are 
 now staging for the first time ; all the speeches made in 
 this second play fit the actors in their double capacity 
 in both plays; and the denoiiment of the second play is 
 the denoument of the first play. Nor is this perfect 
 construction the play's only merit. Tamayo nowhere 
 else equalled the sonorous prose here used, nor the ring- 
 ing verse that he chose for the last scene. The charac- 
 ters are all drawn with the exquisite art of a great mas- 
 ter, and they are lovable in varying degrees ; and Yorick, 
 Alice, and Edmund fill us with pity as well. Only 
 "Walton is horrible, as the human embodiment of Envy, 
 but as we are made to understand how he came to that 
 state, we feel pity even for him. Vn Drama Nuevo is 
 one of the great plays of all literature. 
 
 Some years ago it was presented to the American 
 people at Daly's Theatre in New York, under the title 
 of Yorick's Love. Shakespeare was played by Charles 
 Fisher, with Louis James as Yorick. It did not meet 
 Vv'ith success and Daly complained bitterly of the lack 
 of support by the public in his efforts to place plays of 
 this class before them. The piece was later added to 
 the repertoire of Lawrence Barrett. As I have not been 
 able to see a copy of Yorick' s Love, I do not know 
 whether it was a translation or an adaptation. Nor do 
 I know whether or not it was ever published. 
 
 John D. Fitz - Gerald.
 
 A NEW DRAMA 
 
 fUn Drama NuevoJ 
 
 A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 YoRiCK, comedian in Shakespeare's company. 
 
 Alice, his wife. 
 
 Edmund, his foster-son. 
 
 Walton, tragedian. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 The Stage-Prompter. 
 
 The Prompter's Attendant. 
 
 Actors and employees of the theatre. 
 
 SCENE 
 London — 1605 
 
 Act One — A room in Yorick's house. 
 
 Act Two — The same. A number of days later. 
 
 Act Three — Part One — A dressing room at the theatre. 
 
 The same evening. 
 Part Two — The stage of the theatre. 
 
 Immediately after the preceding.
 
 ACT ONE 
 
 A room in Y crick's house. At the right, a small table; 
 
 at the left, a settle. A door at each side, 
 
 and one in the rear. 
 
 SCENE ONE 
 
 YoRiCK AND Shakespeare 
 
 They enter through the door at the rear. Shakespeare 
 
 carries a manuscript in his hand. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 And may we know to what end you would bring us 
 
 hither at this hour? 
 
 Yorick 
 It irks you, perchance, to enter my house? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 An idle question, that, as well you know. 
 
 Yorick 
 Marry, then, why this haste ? 
 Shakespeare 
 In my own house await me many great ones, who, 
 solely for the pleasure of my company, have journeyed 
 from the other world to this.
 
 6 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Trust me to appease your guests with some bottles 
 of Spanish wine which 1 11 dispatch them straight. They 
 say this precious little wine raises the dead, and 'twould 
 be sport indeed to see the monarehs of England, 
 assembled in your room, coming on a sudden back to 
 life, and falling by the ears to see the which of them 
 again should mount the throne. Yet, when all's done, 
 how can they be more fully resurrected than they already 
 have been by your pen? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What would you, then? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What would I, faith, save only to delight myself 
 with the joy of seeing in my house and in my arms the 
 renowned poet, great Shakespeare, pride and wonder of 
 England ! 
 
 Throwing his arms around his neck. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Nay, then, thou never-sufificiently-praised comedian, 
 festive Yorick, the glory and joy of the stage, God be 
 with you. (Going.) For time's ill spent in soft speech 
 and cajolery. 
 
 Yorick 
 But you shall not go yet!
 
 act i — scene i 7 
 
 Shae:espeare 
 As you will-if there 's no other remedy-I must tarry. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Sit down. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 That 's done ; bethink you now if there 's naught else 
 you want. 
 
 He sits down near the table and leaves upon it the 
 manuscript. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Frankly, how like you this drama we've been 
 hearing ? 
 
 He sits down on the other side of the table and, while 
 speaking, leafs over the manuscript. 
 Shakespeare 
 On my faith it pleased me much. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And 'tis the first work of that youth ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 The first. 
 
 Yorick 
 I, too, think it excellent, altho I note in it some 
 trifling faults. 
 
 . Shakespeare 
 The envious will catalog its faults ; let us look only 
 at its beauty.
 
 8 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well may they say of you that envy never scorched 
 your breast. To be sure, when one has nothing to 
 envj'. . . 
 
 Shakespeake 
 
 You are persistent today with your praises ; and in 
 this last you err. The envious man ne'er lacks a source 
 of envy. Envy sets before one's eyes a pair of magic 
 spectacles through which, at the same instant, everything 
 in one's self looks little and ugly, and everything in 
 others, great and beautiful. And thus you will observe 
 that the wretches who wear such spectacles do envy not 
 alone a better man, but also one beneath them; envious 
 alike of good things and of bad. 'Twas such an one, 
 who, on a time, failing to discover in a miserable neigh- 
 bor a proper source of envy, went and envied — what 
 think youf — forsooth, the only thing the poor wretch 
 possessed to attract attention to himself, a fine big hump 
 that burdened his shoulders! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 "Well enough should I know envy, for a theatre is an 
 admirable nursery for it. Did you ever see a set of 
 greater rascals than a company of actors? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Present company excepted, you should add.
 
 ACT 1 — SCENE I 9 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No, let them all go in, and let him 'scape who can. 
 What murmurings one against the other, each more 
 anxious for the other 's loss than for his own gain ! How 
 every man considers himself supreme and unique in his 
 dominion of the stage ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Emulation may beget low actions, yet 'tis through 
 emulation that man achieves the impossible. Let it wal- 
 low in the mire if it will, for one time or another will 
 it rise to the very clouds. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In truth you were most wise in laying down the 
 sceptre of an actor and keeping only that of poet. 
 Shakespeare 
 
 And yet we must agree, that the rule you make is 
 not without exceptions. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Exceptions may be found, in truth; my wife and 
 Edmund prove it. Blessed be God for the happiness of 
 seeing my good deeds rewarded in this life! Becavise I 
 was generous and kind, I found in Alice an angelic wife 
 and in Edmund a friend — what a friend ! — a son full of 
 noble qualities. And what talent have they both ! How 
 they play Romeo and Juliet! Divine they are — these 
 heroes to whom your fancy gave being ; still more divine
 
 10 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 when Alice and Edmund lend them human form and 
 living soul. What gestures, what glances, what revela- 
 tion of love ! Mark me, 'tis truth itself ! 
 Shakespeare 
 (Aside.) Poor Yoriek! (Aloud.) And may I now 
 take leave ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Nay, first permit me to broach a matter to the 
 director of my theatre, to the laurel-crowned bard, to 
 the. . . 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 By Saint George I swear so many avowals of friend- 
 ship begin to cloy me; 'twas stupid of me not to guess 
 you sought a favor, and would thus pay me for it in 
 advance. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 True is it that I seek a favor. 
 Shakespeare 
 Name it. 
 
 Yorick 
 That would I, but I know not how. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Nay, speak to the point. 
 
 Yorick 
 Tell me quite frankly your opinion of my merit as 
 an actor.
 
 act i — scene 1 11 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Tut ! As tho you knew it not ! For sad and melan- 
 choly folk there's ne'er a medicine so potent as your 
 presence on the boards. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And think you I serve only to make the people 
 laugh ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 I think that that's enough for your glory. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 When will this play be staged ? 
 Shakespeare 
 Without delay. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Whom then have you in mind for the role of Count 
 Octavio ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 'Tis a great role, and tragic par excellence. I shall 
 give it to Walton, who in such parts is superlative. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Yea, sure, I knew it ! A good role, for whom should 
 it be if not for Walton 1 What luck does fall on knaves. 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Hark you. The fruit is ruined if, in early ripening 
 'tis touched by frost ; the heart is ruined if, when open- 
 ing up to life, 'tis chilled by disillusionment. Walton
 
 12 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 was most unhappy in his youth ; he should be pardoned. — 
 And now, for the third and last time, good-bye (Rising.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 But I have not yet said . . . (Also rising.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Well, say it and have done. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 So I shall. I should like . . . but sure you mustn't 
 make a jest of me, nor . . . 
 
 Shakespeare 
 By heaven, speak, nor longer strain my patience. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 I should like . . . 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What ? Out with it, or I disappear as through a trap. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I should like to play that role. 
 Shakespeare 
 What role ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 The one in the new drama. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 But which one? 
 
 Yorick 
 Why, that of Count Octavio, in sooth.
 
 The husband? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 You? 
 
 I. 
 
 act i — scene 1 13 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Shakespeare 
 In God's name, seek a hospital, Yorick, for you are 
 in a parlous state. 
 
 Yorick 
 Thus talk all simpletons. A simpleton were I if, 
 knowing only your tragic works, I had held you incapa- 
 ble of writing pleasant and festive comedies. Because 
 thus far I have plaj^ed but drolls and interludes, am I to 
 be condemned never to go out of the beaten path? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 And why should you leave it for the unknown 
 heights? Thus far you have sought to cause laughter 
 and the public has laughed. Woe on you if some day 
 you set out to make it weep, and the public continues 
 to laugh! 
 
 Yorick 
 Ingrate! To deny so simple a favor to one who has 
 always been your most loyal friend; to one who has
 
 14 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 always loved you as the apple of his eye ! 'Tis all one ; 
 let another play the role of Count; but in that case we 
 are no longer friends, nor next year shall I be in the 
 company of your theatre. And with me I shall take my 
 Alice . . . and Edmund too. We'll see which of us two 
 most suffers. (Very much moved.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What a string of words! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No, no, think not to fit in here your "words, words, 
 words" of Hamlet. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Alas, that no one in the world should be satisfied 
 with his lot ! 
 
 Yorick 
 Ay, verily, 'tis fine sport, this business of making 
 sport for others. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Speak you seriously? Would you be capable of 
 abandoning me? 
 
 Yorick 
 
 Of abandoning you! Did I say that? And you 
 
 don't believe it? (Weeping.) Come, man, come; let's 
 
 not make a bad matter worse. That would be the last 
 
 straw. That you, after questioning my talent, should
 
 ACT I — SCENE I 15 
 
 question also my love. No, I will not abandon you. 
 
 Yorick may not know how to feign resentment, but he 
 knows how to feel a hurt. . . You offend him, humiliate 
 him. . . and he — look — holds out his arms to you. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 In the name of heaven! Are you weeping? 
 
 Yorick 
 I am weeping because infernal fate balks me of my 
 ambition; because it is not Walton alone who holds me 
 for a gross buffoon, capable only of tickling the stupid 
 into stupid laughter ; because I see that you too . . . and 
 that it is that hurts me most . . . that you too . , . God 
 help me, what a wretched lot is mine ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Oh, the devil take you! You want the role of the 
 husband? Well, it's yours, and much good may it do 
 you! 
 
 Yorick 
 With great joy, suddenly ceasing his weeping. 
 In truth? You speak in earnest? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Yes ; feed full that cursed ambition of yours, from 
 which a thousand times I have tried in vain to dissuade 
 you. 
 
 Walking across the stage. Yorick follows him.
 
 16 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And suppose I play the role marvelously ? 
 
 Shakespe.vre 
 And suppose the night of the first performance 
 they hiss you off the stage? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 For a mighty pleasure one can stand a mighty 
 drubbing. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 And how well you would deserve it! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Egad, you know, when we get an idea in our 
 heads .... 
 
 Shakespe.njie 
 Nay, faith, you aren 't stubborn ! 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Why, man, 'twould pleasure me to do it well, if 
 only to prove you wrong. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 And me, to 'scape from saying yoii were wrong. 
 
 YORICK 
 Nay, then, be off with you ! 
 Shakespeare 
 Taking his hat and going toward the rear. 
 Nothing likes me better.
 
 ACT I — SCENE I 17 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With a tone of comic threat, detaining Mm. 
 Be assured, you shall run through this with me. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What should liinder us? (Warmly.) 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Nay, seriously, most seriously. 
 Shakespeare 
 Ay, most, most seriously ! 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 With great formality. 
 In perfect frankness, William, if in this role I come 
 to win applause . . . 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What then ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 My joy will be very great, 
 
 Shakespeare 
 In perfect frankness, Yoriek, not greater than mine 
 own. 
 
 With sincerity and tenderness, giving his hand to 
 
 Yoriek. The latter takes it, much moved, and 
 
 then embraces him. Shakespeare goes 
 
 out at rear.
 
 18 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 SCENE TWO 
 
 YORICK 
 
 "It is so easy to cause laughter", they said to me 
 last night — "Walton and the rest. They'll see right soon 
 that when the time comes I can bring the tears as well. 
 They'll see it and the}' '11 storm; when I, no more with 
 mirth, but now with tragic passions, compel the public's 
 bravos and applause. (He takes from the fop of the 
 table the manuscript.) None the less, one must proceed 
 with plentiful caution, because the blessed role of Count 
 Octavio is just a trifle difficult, and at the slightest 
 stumbling one might take a fall and destroy himself. 
 
 "Tremble, thou faithless spouse! ..." 
 (Reading in the manuscript.) Here's where the big 
 scene comes. One Signor Rodolfo or Pandolfo . . . 
 Landolfo, Landolfo is his name, — (Finding this name in 
 the manuscript.), — a sly knave, delivers to the Count a 
 letter whieli proves that Manfredo, to wliom he has been 
 a father, is the lover of his wife, the enchanting Beatrice. 
 The Count was jealous of ever}' living creature except 
 this fine young squire ; and when at last his house of 
 cards comes tumbling about liis ears, he is left, poor 
 fellow, as stupefied as if the world were falling on him.
 
 ACT I — SCENE II 19 
 
 ' ' Tremble, thou faithless spouse ! thou ingrate, tremble ! 
 Destroyer of my honor and my peace ! 
 Vain was thy craft — behold the damning proof! 
 (He opens the letter.) 
 
 My blood is freezing. 
 (Without daring to look at the letter.) 
 
 Let it flame with wrath! 
 Woe be to him — the infamous wretch — for whom 
 Thou blindly dost defile me. 
 Alas ! what do I see ! A thousand devils ! 
 (He fixes his glance on the letter, gives a horrible cry, 
 and falls on a bench as tho struck by lightning. ) ' ' (From 
 "Tremble, thou faithless spouse" up to this point, 
 reading in the manuscript; the stage directions in a tone 
 different from that of the verses.) Now to see how I 
 manage that yell. 
 
 He takes an affectedly tragic attitude, doubles up the 
 manuscript so that it may serve as a letter, and 
 
 declaims stupidly with ridiculous intonation. 
 
 "Woe be to him — the infamous wretch — for whom 
 
 Thou blindly dost defile me. 
 
 Alas! what do I see! ..." 
 
 (Giving a discordant yell.) No . . . 'tis true, I do it 
 
 less than perfectly as yet. — ' ' Oh ! " (Giving a yell worse 
 
 than before.) Bad, unconscionably bad ; 'tis thus one 
 
 yells when someone treads upon his foot. — "Oh!"
 
 20 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 (Yelling again.) Nay, no human noise that — 'tis the 
 croaking of some great bird. Bah ! Later with the heat 
 of the situation . . . Let's see here . . . 
 
 "So then, 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Too weak. 
 
 "So then, 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Too strong. 
 
 "So then, 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Nay, the villain I, the madman I, at my age to insist on 
 going counter to my nature and old custom. — Perhaps 
 now the fault's not altogether mine. . . . Perhaps the 
 author is somewhat to blame. . . . These poets sometimes 
 write the veriest stuff. . . . 
 
 "So then, 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Beshrew me, how to say't aright! What if William's 
 prophecy be fulfilled, and they hiss me. . . . No, I'll 
 not consider that. I should die of rage and shame. 
 Well, we'll see what happens. Away with fear! Set 
 on! (Pause, during which he reads in a low tone from 
 the manuscript, making facial expressions and gestures.) 
 Ay, now begin I to like my rendering. I perceive that 
 in a low tone everything I say sounds wondrous fine. 
 Oh, I '11 carry it off triumphantly ! Faith, I '11 do it to 
 suit the Queen's taste! — Ah, is it you! Come hither, 
 Edmund, come. (To Edmund, who appears in the door 
 at rear.) Do you not know?
 
 ACT I — SCENE III 21 
 
 SCENE THREE 
 
 YoRiCK AND Edmund 
 
 Edmund 
 As tho frightened. 
 What? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 That in this piece you look upon, I have a great role. 
 Aside. 
 ' ' Thou ingrate, tremble ! ' ' 
 Edmund 
 I am heartily pleased, sir. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 For some time past instead of father, you have 
 called me Sir, and vainly have I chidden you for it. 
 
 Aside. 
 
 "Tremble, thou faithless spouse!" . . . 
 
 Aloud. 
 
 Have I unwittingly given you cause to deny me a name 
 
 so dear? 
 
 Edmund 
 It is I who am unworthy to pronounce it.
 
 22 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Whence comes this now? Alas, Edmund, you are 
 losing your affection for me ! 
 
 Edmund 
 What could lead you to imagine it? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You were less reserved with me if you loved me as 
 of old 
 
 Edmund 
 How say you I am reserved with you? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In not telling me the cause of your sadness. 
 
 Edmund 
 I, sad? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Sad and full of unrest. I '11 wager you 're in love ! 
 
 Edmund 
 In love ? I ! . . . Do you suppose . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 One would think I had charged you with a crime. 
 
 (Smiling.) Ah ! (With sudden seriousness.) Love may 
 
 be a crime. Do you love a married woman ? 
 
 Seizing him by tJie hand. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Changing color. 
 
 Oh!
 
 ACT I — SCENE III 23 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You are pale. . . . Your hand trembles . . . 
 
 Edmund 
 Yes . . . truly. . . . But indeed you look on me in 
 such a fashion . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Our conscience must be carrying a bit of a burden 
 if a glance frightens us. Consider well ; he who robs a 
 man of his estate does him less damage than he who robs 
 him of his honor ; he who wounds his body, than he who 
 wounds his soul. Edmund, be not guilty of that. . . . 
 Oh, my son, not that, for God's sake ! 
 
 Edmund 
 Your fear has no foundation, be assured. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I believe you. You are incapable of deceiving 
 me. — Now then, without more ado, this drama sets forth 
 the great misfortunes caused by the frailty of a wife; 
 and look you, not even tho it be as a fiction of the stage 
 does it please me that Alice have to play the role of 
 guilty wife, and you the part of treacherous seducer. 
 
 Edmund 
 Trying to dissimulate. 
 Is't so?
 
 24 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With comic emphasis. 
 And I shall be the outraged husband ! 
 Edmtjnd 
 Allowing himself to he carried away hy his emotion. 
 You! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Myself, truly. . . . Why are you surprised? Are 
 you too one of those who think I cannot play a serious 
 role? 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Nay, sir, nay, but . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Tis true I'll have to struggle against odds. — Verily, 
 now I think on't, no other role than that of jealous hus- 
 band would satisfy me ; because to this day I am yet to 
 learn what kind of little worm this jealousy may be. 
 Constrained to toil continuously since babyhood, and 
 later having fallen in love with fame, fame only was 
 the mistress of my affections; until, my head then turn- 
 ing white, my heart, through strange and happy chance, 
 revealed itself still young, by offering a woman the 
 homage of a burning adoration. And Alice — well you 
 know it — has never to this moment caused me jealousy, 
 nor will she e'er in all her life. It is not possible to 
 distrust so noble a creature. Is 't not so ?
 
 ACT I — SCENE m 25 
 
 Edmund 
 Ay, sir; it is not possible. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You speak it coldly. Hark you, Edmund. I do ill 
 in hiding from you what for some time past I have 
 observed. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Somewhat you have observed? What then, pray? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 That Alice seems to win no smallest part of your 
 affection; perchance you even look upon her with 
 aversion. 
 
 Edmund 
 Very much disturbed. 
 This you have observed? . . . How strange a 
 fancy ! . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Nor is the motive hidden from my eyes. You 
 reigned alone in my heart before Alice became my wife, 
 and it annoys you now to find another sharing it with 
 you. Vain fellow ! Promise me you will make peace 
 with her this day. Indeed, henceforward you shall call 
 her Alice. 'Twere better even that you call her mother ; 
 or if not mother, since her age befits it not, pray call 
 her sister, for brother and sister surely you should be, 
 both having the same father. Embracing him.
 
 26 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 Aside. 
 What torture! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You are weeping? Come, come, weep not . . . 
 weep not, lest you would have me likewise. . . . (Wip- 
 ing his tears with his hand.) And would j'ou know my 
 thought? 'Tis this, that if in you the jealousy of a son 
 is so keen, a lover's jealousy must be something fright- 
 ful. They say no passion's stronger than this jealous}^, 
 that absolute it dominates the soul; that from the 
 mind it sweeps all other thoughts. 
 Edmund 
 
 All other thoughts! Ay, sir, all other thoughts. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 So then you have been jealous of a woman ? What 
 joy ! Thus can you help me with the role of jealous 
 husband; explaining how this passion, strange to me, 
 may breed and be developed in the heart; what kind of 
 torments it causes; by what external signs it shows 
 itself; everything, in short, that any way belongs to it. 
 Begin now by reading this scene for me. (Giving him 
 the open manuscript.) From here. (Pointing to the 
 place.) Begin. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 "So then 'tis thou who art the villain. ..."
 
 ACT I — SCENE 111 27 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Tis what I say to you. 
 Edmund changes color and continues to read stupidly 
 and faintly. 
 
 Edmund 
 **The treacherous, the perfidious. ..." 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Boy, boy! Look you, it could not be worse done. 
 More force ! More vehemence ! 
 
 Edmund 
 "The infamous seducer who dost dare. ..." 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Fire ! More fire ! 
 
 Edmund 
 *'To torture thus the heart of an old man." 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Today you are not equal to it. Give it to me. 
 (Taking the manuscript from him.) Listen. 
 
 "So then 'tis thou who art the villain thou, 
 
 The treacherous, the perfidious — ay, thou, 
 
 The infamous seducer "
 
 28 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 SCENE FOUR 
 
 The Aforesaid and Walton 
 
 Walton 
 From the door at rear. 
 Who is raging hereabouts? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Closing the manuscript. 
 Walton ! 
 
 Walton 
 Wert quarreling with Edmund? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I was quarreling with no one. 
 
 Walton 
 On entering, it seemed to me I heard . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Aside. 
 Already, sure, he knows it, and comes to pick 
 a quarrel. 
 
 Walton 
 I 'd swear you greet me with small pleasure. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Because I divine your intentions. 
 
 Walton 
 'Tis divining, is it?
 
 ACT 1 — SCENE IV 29 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Let us spare words : what brings you hither ? 
 
 Walton 
 If you know it, why ask me? — But wherefore art 
 thou standing, Master Walton (Addressing himself.) 
 Here thou hast a chair. (Taking a chair and placing it 
 in the center.) Gramercy! 
 
 Seating himself. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Look you now ! As for me, you need not come with 
 raillery, for if I grow angry. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 Oh, then! .... 'Tis well. ... Ay, verily! Why, 
 he has the temper of a tiger. ... Is 't not so, Edmund t 
 
 Edmund 
 Eh? ... . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Wouldst flout at me ? 
 
 Edmund 
 Flout at you ? .... He ? 
 
 Walton 
 'Tis altogether fitting that you defend your friend 
 Yorick, your protector, your second father. . . . Oh, 
 this boy 's a treasure ! (Addressing Yorick.) And how 
 I do esteem these grateful fellows!
 
 30 tamayo y baits — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 Without being able to contain himself and with a 
 
 threatening air. 
 Walton ! 
 
 Walton 
 Praise troubles you? 
 
 Edmund 
 Aside. 
 What's his intent? 
 
 Walton 
 Well, 'tis plain you all have trodden on thorns 
 today. Good-bye. (Rising.) You are the loser. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I am the loser. . . . How? 
 Walton 
 No matter. I came in search of a friend, I find a 
 fool, and I take my leave. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 A fool you call me? 
 
 Walton 
 Nothing more apt occurred to me. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You have seen Shakespeare? 
 Walton 
 No, but r saw the author of the new drama.
 
 ACT I — SCENE IV 31 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well? 
 
 Walton 
 
 Shakespeare, on leaving here, chanced on him and 
 told him that in his piece 'twas you must take the role of 
 husband. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Ah! Now do we begin to understand each other. 
 
 Walton 
 The author was like one who sees a nightmare. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 A tolerable nightmare, he himself. 
 
 Walton 
 And hugely angered ; he came to my house to set 
 me on to claim a role which was, in his opinion, 
 mine. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And you. . . Well? . . . You. . . 
 
 Walton 
 I. . . . (As if making a violent effort to control 
 himself.) I wish you to loiow the truth .... At first 
 I was filled with wrath ; then I saw that I was in the 
 wrong, and said I to the poet. . . . But why should I 
 weary- myself with telling you? .... 
 
 Takes a few steps toward rear.
 
 32 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Nay, , . Hear me. Come hither. . . (He seizes 
 him by the hand and drags him toward front.) What 
 said you to him? 
 
 Walton 
 
 I told him that you were my friend, that an actor 
 of your merit and experience could play well any kind 
 of role, so he but bent his mind to it ; that I would play 
 the role of confidant, wliicli, being odious, is most 
 difficult; that I would aid you with my counsels, would 
 you accept them. . . . Good-bye. . . 
 
 As tho taking leave, and starting toward the rear. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Nay then, come hither, )nan, come hither, (Detain- 
 ing him and dragging him to front as before.) You said 
 that? . . . 
 
 Walton 
 
 And when I come, at peace with myself, to give 
 
 you the news, I am received with a face like vinegar 
 
 and words like gall. . . . Perforce I had to i)ay you 
 
 in the same coin. The fault's your own, and so ... . 
 
 Again going toward rear. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Heydey, you must not go. (Stopping him and 
 drawing him down once more.) This that you tell me 
 is so rare. . . . !
 
 act i — scene iv 33 
 
 Walton 
 And why is it so rare? Let's hear. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 It seemed most natural that you should be displeased 
 to lose the chance of gaining a new triumph, and on 
 
 the other hand that I 
 
 Walton 
 
 The temple of glory is so great that it has not yet 
 been filled nor will it ever be. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With that villainous temper of yours. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 I am reputed peevish because I lack the skill to 
 lie and make pretense. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In truth then, it galls you not to have me play the 
 role of Count Oetavio in that drama ? 
 Walton 
 Nay, as I have said. 
 
 YORlCK 
 
 And you will play the role of confidant? 
 
 Walton 
 Yea, as I have said. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And wilt help me with my role ?
 
 34 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 Your doubts offend me. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Edmund, hear vou this? 
 
 Walton 
 Let's see, now, if for once I succeed in being 
 appreciated at ray real wortli. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Why, look you, here's the truth, I've always taken 
 you to be a rogue. 
 
 Walton 
 Thus are men judged in this our world. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 To confess one's faults is the beginning of reform; 
 and now if you would cudgel me a bit. . . . 
 
 W.VLTON 
 
 I' faith, I ought. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 About it, then; don't hesitate. In charity I 
 prithee lay on one blow at least. 
 
 Walton 
 Nay, have done. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well, give me your hand.
 
 act i — scene iv 35 
 
 Walton 
 They shake hands warmly. 
 That I will. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And I who would have sworu .... Ah! He who 
 thinks ill deserves never to be mistaken. Have you 
 some business toward? 
 
 Walton 
 
 None in the world. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Twould please me greatly to hear you read the role 
 before I set about to con it ! 
 
 Walton 
 Well, if you wish it, so far as I'm concerned. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 If I wish it? Why, of course, I wish it. I wish 
 naught else. Forsooth, you leave me amazed at such 
 unbounded goodness and nobility! Who would have 
 dreamed that you. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 With wrath. 
 Back at your old tricks ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No, no. . . . On the contrary. ... I meant. . . . 
 Devil take me, let's go to my room. . . . There we'll
 
 36 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 shut ourselves in and. . . . Frankly : the role of out- 
 raged husband seems to be somewhat difficult .... 
 
 Walton 
 You mistake. The role of outraged husband is 
 played mthout the slightest difficulty. I'll wager 
 Edmund agrees with me? 
 
 Edmund 
 I? . . . . (Aside) What is he saying? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With your instruction all will be easy for me. And 
 tell me, you will school me in some of those inflections 
 which gain you such magnificent effects? 
 
 Walton 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And in those swift transitions which always wia 
 applause for you ? 
 
 Walton 
 Idle question. 
 
 YORlCK 
 
 And that manner of feigning tears by which you 
 make the public weep? 
 
 Walton 
 Yes, man, yes; all that you may wish. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And think you in the end that I shall win . . .?
 
 act i — scene iv 37 
 
 Walton 
 You'll win a triumph, 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Ruhhing his hands with joy. 
 In sober earnest? 
 
 Walton 
 Not even you yourself do know your powers. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With joy that scarcely permits him to speak. 
 But, man .... 
 
 Walton 
 Oh, I pique myself on knowing actors. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And so you do indeed !....! should set myself 
 to dancing — this joy's too great for words! Come, let's 
 go in. (Taking Walton toward the right. Then he 
 runs to Edmund. Walton remains awaiting him.) But 
 Edmund, can you see me so elated, and will not share 
 my happiness? Be joyous, in heaven's name. I'd have 
 the wliole world joyous. 
 
 "So then 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Walton 
 
 Come, let us lose no time .... 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Yes, yes, let us not lose. . . . (Running toward 
 Walton.) Nay, the thing I lose today is sure my
 
 38 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 head ! . . . Oh, hark you ! (Returning rapidly to 
 Edmund and speaking in a low tone.) Even tho he lend 
 me aid with the role, I do not renounce yours. ... eh? 
 (He goes to the center and there stops.) "With two such 
 masters .... (Talking to himself and indicating 
 Edmund and Walton.) and with "William on the top o' 
 these . . . and, too, the fact that I'm no fool .... 
 "Tremble, thou faithless spouse I thou ingrate, tremble !" 
 There's no doubt about it. 111 do"t di\^nely! (Leaping 
 for joy.) Did I not say as much ? Already I am 
 capering with joy, like any stripling. 
 
 Walton 
 But will you never come ? . . . . 
 YORICK 
 
 Yes, yes, let's on. 
 
 Yorick and Walton go out at right. 
 
 SCENE FIVE 
 
 Edmund, and shortly afterward Alice 
 
 Edmund 
 
 "What must I think ? Does "Walton know my secret ? 
 
 God forbid I Was he speaking without malice, or with 
 
 base intent? Always to fear, to tremble at every 
 
 whisper! How timorous is guilt! Oh, what a life the 
 
 guilty lead ! 
 
 He sits near the table, on which he leans his arms,
 
 ACT I — SCENE V 39 
 
 allowing his head to fall iipoi them. Alice comes 
 
 from the door at left and on seeing him in that 
 
 attitude shudders and runs toward him, terrified. 
 
 Alice 
 
 Edmund, what's this? What has happened to you? 
 
 What is the matter? 
 
 Edmund 
 You too, poor girl, forever trembling, even as I ! 
 
 Alice 
 What can I do but tremble ? One struggles not with 
 conscience without fear. 
 
 Edmund 
 And must we always live thus? Tell me, in pity's 
 name ; is this life ? 
 
 Alice 
 You ask me this? It may be one could count the 
 moments of the day; but not the griefs and frights I 
 suffer in the day. If some one looks at me, I say: He 
 knows it. If one draws near my husband, I say: He 
 is about to tell him. In every face methinks I find a 
 threatening look; the innocentest word re-echoes in my 
 bosom like a threat. The light makes me afraid ; I fear 
 it will expose my conscience. The darkness frightens 
 me ; for in its midst my conscience seems a still more 
 shadowy thing. At times I would take oath that here 
 upon my brow I feel the brand of sin; I want to touch
 
 40 TAMAYO Y BAUS A NEW DRAMA 
 
 it with my hand, and hardly can I ban the fixed illusion 
 by looking on myself within the glass. Now all my 
 strength's exhausted; my heart no longer wills to go 
 on suffering. Even the hour that's welcomed by the 
 weary brings me new terrors. "What torment! Alas, 
 if I sleep, perchance I'll dream of him; perchance his 
 name will escape my lips; perhaps I'll cry aloud that 
 I love him ! And if at last I sleep despite myself, then 
 I am still more wretched, for the vague fears of my 
 waking hours take on in sleep the vivid form of dread 
 reality. And again it is day; and the bitterness of 
 yesterday which seemed so limitless is outdone by 
 today's; and the bitterness of today, seeming to crowd 
 upon the infinite, is ever outdone by tomorow's. To 
 weep, oh, how much I have wept ! How sighed ! I have 
 no longer tears nor sighs to console me. You come? — 
 what fear ! What longing to have you gone ! You leave 
 me ? "What disquietude, what longing for your coming ! 
 You come again, and when as now I talk with you alone, 
 it seems my words resound so loud that they can 
 everywhere be heard. The flutter of an insect stops my 
 blood; everywhere, meseems, are ears that hear, eyes 
 that see, and I know not where to turn mine own. . . . 
 (Looking with terror in one direction and another.) 
 and. ... Oh ! (Cries out.)
 
 act i — scene v 41 
 
 Edmund 
 What ? Speak ! 
 With fear and anxiety, looking in the same direction 
 as Alice. 
 Alice 
 Nothing! My shadow — ray shadow, which seemed 
 to me an accusing witness. And you would ask me if 
 this be life? Edmund, how can it be? It is not life — 
 not life. It is but death on death. 
 Edmund 
 Alice, be calm, and think on this : had you but more 
 of guilt, you would believe yourself less guilty. For sin 
 seems ever horrible when virtue gleams beside it still. 
 
 Alice 
 Oh, tell me not of virtue. Merely by loving you I 
 trample every duty under foot; I offend earth and 
 heaven. Save me! save me as a strong man saves a 
 helpless woman. 
 
 Edmund 
 Oh, yes, we must both be saved! But how? To 
 see my Alice, my heart's idol, and not to speak with 
 her; to speak with her and tell her not I love her; to 
 cease to love her, having loved her once ! . . . . What 
 folly ! what madness ! Still every day I cheer myself in 
 forming high resolves with no intention of fulfilling 
 them; thus does one give the devil cause for laughter.
 
 42 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 I set myself the task that everyone proposes in such 
 straits: to turn love into friendship. And love that 
 strives to abate itself, grows ever greater. Love is not 
 to be turned to friendship ; forsooth it may be changed 
 to odium as deep and active as itself. To love you less — 
 the thought infuriates, maddens me. To love you with 
 delirium, or to liate with frenzy, there is no other w^ay. 
 Let us face it. Tell me, how could I come to hate you? 
 
 Alice 
 
 Whole days I, too, spend planning means to break 
 this tyrant of my will. If only Edmund loved another 
 woman, I tell myself, 'twould settle all. And at the 
 mere thought of seeing you at the side of another woman, 
 I tremble with anger; nay, compared with that grief 
 there's none which does not in my eyes seem joy. I set 
 myself to asking God that you'll forget me, and presently 
 I find myself imploring Him to make you love me. No 
 longer can I fight this losing battle. I know myself an 
 ingrate to the best of men — I love you. I know my 
 vileness — yet I love you. Save me, I said — when my 
 salvation's only this — to love you not. You can not 
 save me. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Alice ! Alice, my darling ! 
 Alice 
 
 Edmund! (They are ahout to embrace, and stop, 
 hearing a noise in the hackground.) Oh, stay !
 
 ACT I — SCENE VI 43 
 
 SCENE SIX 
 
 The Same, and Shakespeare 
 Later, Yorick and Walton 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Blessed be God that I find you alone. I was seeking 
 you. 
 
 Edmund 
 Whom .... me? (With suspicion.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 You, and her. 
 
 Alice 
 Both of us? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Both. 
 
 Edmund 
 Heavens! (Aside.) 
 
 Alice 
 Dear God ! (Aside.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Can I speak without fear of being overheard? 
 
 Edmund 
 So secret, then, is what you have to tell us ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Would I were deaf to it myself!
 
 44 tamayo y baus — a new drxvma 
 
 Alice 
 What's to come? (Aside.) 
 Edmund 
 Speak, but have a care what 'tis you speak. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Nay, it is for you to have a care. 
 Fixing him with a look. 
 Edmund 
 I cannot tolerate .... 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Silence, and listen. (Imperiously.) 
 
 Edmund 
 Oh! 
 Lowering his head, dominated by the tone and attitude 
 of Shakespeare. 
 Shakespeare 
 I should long since have ventured what today I do 
 from hard compulsion. I was a coward. These curst 
 conventions that turn good men to cowards ! I no longer 
 hesitate: I regard nothing. Edmund, you love that 
 woman. 
 
 Edmund 
 I? . . . . 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Alice, you love him.
 
 act i — scene vi 45 
 
 Alice 
 Ah ! (With fright and grief.) 
 
 Edmund 
 By what right dare you. . . .? 
 Shakespeare 
 By the right that's given me as the friend of your 
 father, the friend of her husband. 
 Edmund 
 And if it is not true — if they've deceived you? 
 
 Alice 
 They have deceived you, doubt it not. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Hj^pocrisy and guilt are twin sisters. Come here. 
 (Seizing Alice hy one hand and drawing her near.) 
 And you. (Seizing Edmund^ and placing him opposite 
 her.) Raise your head, Edmund. You, yours. (Lift- 
 ing their heads.) Look at each other face to face with 
 the calmness of innocence. Look ! — Ah ! you were pale : 
 why blush you now ? Before, the color of remorse ; and 
 now, of shame. 
 
 Alice 
 Pity! 
 
 Edmund 
 Enough! (With profound grief.) 
 
 ArjCE 
 So sudden were vour words ....
 
 46 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 The charge has fallen on us like a thunderbolt. 
 
 Alice 
 We were afraid. 
 
 Edmund 
 I'll tell you all the truth. 
 Alice 
 Ay, it is truth — he loves me, I love him. 
 
 Edmund 
 You are noble and generous. 
 
 Alice 
 You will have pity on two unhappy beings. 
 
 Edmund 
 Nor wish to increase our misery. 
 
 Alice 
 Nay, so, you will protect us, you will defend us 
 against our very selves. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Come, my children, be calm. 
 
 Alice 
 Children he calls us. Do you hear? 
 
 Edmund 
 "We'll throw ourselves at your feet. 
 Alice 
 Starting to kneel. 
 Yea!
 
 act i — scene vi 47 
 
 Shab:espeare 
 Opening his arms. 
 No, better will ye be in my arms. 
 
 Edmund 
 Restraining himself with shamefaced diffidence. 
 William! .... 
 
 Alice 
 With joy. 
 Is it possible ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Come. 
 
 Edmund 
 Throwing himself into Ms arms. 
 Save us! 
 
 Alice 
 Throwing herself also into Shakespeare's arms. 
 Save us, in pity's name! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Yes, with God's aid I will save you. 
 
 A pause during which one hears the sohs of Edmund 
 
 and Alice. 
 
 Alice 
 
 But what's this* You are weeping? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Seeing tears, what can one do but weep ?
 
 48 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 Edmund, it is a protector that Heaven sends us. 
 And we wanted to deceive him, we wanted to reject him ! 
 How blind are the wretched! To have a friend to com- 
 fort us, to take upon himself some of our woe — protected 
 by the one who best can cure the ills of the soul, because 
 'tis he wlio knows them best. . . . Oh, what unexpected 
 joy ! Who would have told me a moment ago that 
 happiness was so near? Once more I begin to breathe. 
 Ah, Edmund, this is life indeed ! 
 Shakespeare 
 There is no time to lose. Speak. I must know 
 everything. 
 
 Pause. 
 Edmund 
 Two years ago, Alice joined your company. "Twas 
 then I met her. Would I never had ! 
 
 Alice 
 Would I had ne'er met him! 
 
 Edmund 
 I saw her from a distance ; a mysterious force drew 
 me toward her. I reached her side. My vision was 
 enrapt — 'twas no mere look I gave her. I spoke, but 
 no on(; heard my words. T trembled : T loved her ! 
 
 Alice 
 And I loved him 1
 
 act i — scene vi 49 
 
 Edmund 
 Love, even rightful, inclines to live hidden in the 
 depths of the heart. Days passed . . I resolved at last 
 to declare myself. . . . Impossible ! 
 
 Alice 
 Yorick had already told me of his affection. 
 
 Edmund 
 My rival was the man to whom I owed everything. 
 
 Alice 
 I\Iy mother fell dangerously sick; we lacked re- 
 sources. To our eyes, Yorick seemed as one sent by the 
 Infinite Pity. 
 
 Edmund 
 Could I prevent my benefactor's doing good to 
 others ? 
 
 Alice 
 And one day, "Alice," saith my mother, "thou 
 wilt be left abandoned; marry Yorick — he loves thee so, 
 and is so worthy." 
 
 Edmund 
 Yorick had picked me up, naked and starving, from 
 the gutter, to give me shelter and love and happiness 
 and a place in the world. 
 
 Alice 
 'Twas Yorick cheered the last days of my mother's 
 lif<.> T^dth all manner of comforts.
 
 50 tamato y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 For me to destroy his happiness would have been 
 the depth of meanness. 
 
 Alice 
 My mother on her death-bed begged me .... 
 
 Edmund 
 I did but pay the tribute that gratitude demands. 
 
 Alice 
 And I but gave the answer that one gives a dying 
 mother. 
 
 Edmund 
 I swore to forget her. 
 
 Alice 
 And I, in striving to love him less, but loved him 
 more. 
 
 Edmund 
 Vain resistance ! 
 
 Alice 
 Yet, thought I. Edmund is his son. 
 
 Edmund 
 Yorick is my father, so I told myself. 
 
 x\lice 
 And when 1 }uarry Yorick, 'twill end the love that 
 Edmimd has inspired.
 
 act i — scene vi 51 
 
 Edmund 
 The instant Yorick's bound to her in wedlock, my 
 love for her is ended. 
 
 Alice 
 To love my husband's son? How horrible! — Nay, 
 impossible ! 
 
 Edmund 
 So I — to love my father's wife? What madness! 
 It cannot be. 
 
 Alice 
 And how I longed and waited for my marriage- 
 hour! 
 
 Edmund 
 For me, each minute seemed a century, till then, 
 
 Alice 
 At last the hour was here! 
 
 Edmund 
 At last she married him ! 
 
 Alice 
 And love, its one hope lost, instead of fleeing front 
 our breast. . . . 
 
 Edmund 
 Arose therein, with outcries like a wild beast at bay. 
 
 Alice 
 Silent we, still silent.
 
 52 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 In spite of Yorick's praj-ers and tears, I would no 
 longer live with him. 
 
 Alice 
 Yet here he often had to come. 
 
 Edmund 
 So Yorick bade. 
 
 Alice 
 We saw each other daily — silent. 
 
 Edmund 
 Hour after hour we passed alone together — silent. 
 
 Alice 
 At last one day while playing Romeo and 
 Juliet. . . . 
 
 Edmund 
 Animated by the flame of the beautiful fiction. . . . 
 
 Alice 
 Mingling with the flame of the fiction the burning 
 flame of reality. . 
 
 Edmund 
 With all eyes fixed on us. . . . 
 
 Alice 
 And all ears hanging on our words. . . . 
 
 Edmund 
 Then my lips — nay, my heart — asked her gently, 
 very gently : ' ' Dost thou love me ? "
 
 act i — scene vi 53 
 
 Alice 
 And my lips — nay, ray heart — softly, very softly, 
 answered : ' ' Yes. ' ' 
 
 Edmund 
 Such is our guilt. 
 
 Alice 
 Our punishment, at every hour to dread and 
 tremble. 
 
 Edmund 
 A cankering remorse. 
 
 Alice 
 Without a single solace. 
 
 Edmund 
 One remedy alone. 
 
 Alice 
 To die. 
 
 Edmund 
 There's nothing more to tell you. 
 
 Alice 
 We swear it. 
 
 Edmund 
 By the soul of Yorick ! 
 
 Alice 
 By his soul! 
 
 Edmund ' 
 
 This is what has come to pass.
 
 54 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 Just this. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Poor human nature ! In thee the noble enterprise 
 begun with strength unequal to the task, becomes a well 
 of evil. Poor human nature. Thou dost recoil before 
 the smaller bar, and dost leap o'er the greater. You 
 love each other ; 'tis imperative you shall not love. 
 
 Edmund 
 Who says so knows not that the soul enslaved by 
 love cannot free itself from its tyrant. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Who says so knows the soul is free, as being the 
 child of God. 
 
 Alice 
 Explain it to me, in the name of pity ! What must 
 be done when one who loves would cease to love ? 
 Shakespeare 
 WUl 
 
 Edmund 
 To will is not enough. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 'Tis enough, if the willing be not feigned. 
 
 Alice 
 Who assures that?
 
 act 1 — scene vi 55 
 
 Shakespeare 
 A witness not to be denied. 
 Edmund 
 What witness? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Your conscience. If it were not responsible for the 
 guilt, why these starts, these tears, and this remorse. 
 You will flee from Alice forever. 
 Edmund 
 That thought has come to me a thousand times 
 already. Don't demand the impossible. 
 Shakespeare 
 On tlie downward slope of sin one must advance, 
 or make retreat ; you will retreat despite yourself. 
 Edmund 
 You'll force me to go away? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 If 'tis the only means, by force must right prevail. 
 
 Alice 
 Edmund will obey you. At last with some one to 
 protect us, you shall see how faith and courage are 
 reborn in our liearts. 
 
 Edmund 
 Ah, yes : with you to aid, no deed can seem 
 impossible. We are soldiers of duty.
 
 56 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 You, our captain. 
 
 Edmund 
 Lead us to victory ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Could I but bring to pass this one good deed, I'd 
 laugh at my Othello and Macbeth and all that foolery. 
 (With inner joy.) I trust in the promise of a man. 
 (Taking Edmund's hand.) And in the promise of a 
 woman. (Taking her's.) 
 
 Edmund and Alice 
 Yes! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Now then, until the day shall come when Edmund 
 leaves us, you must not be alone ; never in the presence 
 of others look at each other, not even by a glance. Duty 
 asks this, necessity demands it. I thought myself the 
 sole possessor of the secret . . . fool that I was ! Love 
 never could stay hidden. 
 
 Alice 
 What say you? 
 
 Edmund 
 Explain yourself ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 This awful secret's known as well by one quite 
 capable of villainy.
 
 ACT I — scenp: VI 57 
 
 Edmund 
 What's he? 
 
 Shakespeaee 
 By getting his assignment in the new drama, Yorick 
 has maddened Walton. 
 
 Edmund 
 With terror. 
 Walton ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 I have it from the author of the piece, who came 
 just now from Walton's house to mine, and told me of 
 their recent discourse. He saw not Walton's thoughts, 
 but he did echo certain words of his, as these : ' ' The 
 role of outraged husband divinely fits this Yorick, and 
 no one should dispute his having it." 
 
 Alice 
 God of my soul! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 "If now neglect or blindness should make him miss 
 the fine points of the role, 'tis I shall open his eyes." 
 
 Alice 
 Ah, 'tis certain ! That man 's a wicked wretch ; he '11 
 ruin us ! 
 
 Edmund 
 With profound anxiety. 
 Yes, Alice, we are ruined, ruined utterly.
 
 58 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Not yet. I go at ouce iii search of him, and finding 
 him — there is no longer anything to fear. 
 Going toward the rear. 
 Edmund 
 Going to her, seizing her hand. 
 Alice ! Alice. 
 
 Alice 
 What is it ? Why so moved ? 
 Shakespeare 
 From the rear. 
 Courage, Edmund. I shall return at once to calm 
 you both. 
 
 Edmund 
 Leave us not, for God 's sake ! 
 Shakespeare 
 Taking a few steps toward front. 
 Not leave you? What's the reason? 
 
 Edmund 
 Walton's no longer there — not at his house. 
 Shakespeare 
 Coming to Edmund's side. 
 How know you this? 
 
 Edmund 
 'Tis I who say to you, Courage ! (To ShaJcespaere.) 
 Courage, poor girl ! (To Alice.)
 
 ACT I — SCENE VI 59 
 
 Alice 
 Nay, end this horrible suspense. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Where is he? 
 
 Edmund 
 Here. 
 
 Heavens ! 
 
 With him? 
 
 With him! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Alice 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Shakespeare 
 You have seen him, then? 
 
 Edmund 
 Even in my presence he began to explain the object 
 of his coming. 
 
 Alice 
 Ah ! what shall I do now — my God, what shall I do ? 
 
 Edmund 
 Earth hates me, else would she open at my feet ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 111 fortune! 
 
 Alice 
 Do not abandon me ; defend me, shield me. . . .
 
 60 tamayo y baus — a new dram v 
 
 Edmund 
 In pity 's name, a way, a hope ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 If we lose our heads. . . . Calm. . . . quiet. . . . 
 
 Pondering. Yorick appears in the door at right, followed 
 
 hy Walton; he gives Walton the manuscript that he 
 
 holds in his hand, and with joyous coimtenance, 
 
 makes signs for him to keep silence, putting 
 
 his finger on his lips. He then 
 
 approaches his wife rapidly on tip-toe. 
 
 Edmund 
 With great anxiety, to Shakespeare. 
 What make you of it ? 
 
 Alice 
 Speak. 
 
 Yorick 
 
 Seizing his wife with one arm, tvith a tragically affected 
 
 attitude, and declaiming with exaggerated emphasis. 
 
 "Tremble, thou faithless spouse! thou ingrate. ..." 
 
 Alice 
 
 Christ! (Shuddering with fright.) Pardon! 
 
 Falling to the floor in a faint. 
 
 Yorick 
 
 Eh? ... .
 
 act i — scene vi 61 
 
 Edmund 
 Trying to hurl himself at Walton. 
 Damned villain! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 In a low tone to Edmund, holding him back. 
 Fool! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Confused and stunned. 
 "Pardon!" 
 
 Walton 
 Aside, ironically. 
 Such a coincidence ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 ''Pardon!" .... 
 Trying to explain to himself ivhat has happened. 
 Shakespeare goes to help Alice. 
 
 Curtain
 
 ACT TWO 
 
 The same setting. 
 
 SCENE ONE 
 
 Walton 
 I shall await his return. (At the rear, speaking to 
 someone without. He lays his hat on a chair and ad- 
 vances to the front.) Three hours or better he spends 
 with me in the rehearsal, and shortly after seeks me at 
 my house. What can he wish ? And am I wise in seeking 
 him ? The thing one loves allures — so with the thing one 
 hates. This night the new play will be first performed. 
 This night will Yorick play my rightful role, the role he 
 villainously robbed me of. Will he play it well ? To let 
 him make the attempt; to lead him on to essay a task 
 so big that failure's certain; myself beside him in a 
 lesser role; this were a pretty scheme, methought, at a 
 single stroke to mete out proper punishment for him, 
 and win myself an exquisite revenge. But now I fear 
 I've been in error. 'Tis odd that every one except myself 
 should think he will perform it badly. The rabble 
 applaud by habit. . . . Yorick is their idol. . . . Even 
 his sudden changing of the sock for the buskin, will serve
 
 64 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 for praise of him. Nor will my enemies disdain this 
 palpable occasion to affront me. And how fervent is the 
 praise for him who earns it not ! How sweet it is to extol 
 one with the sole aim of humiliating another ! Aye, sure, 
 'tis fine to have this Yorick come with his white hands 
 and snatch from my brow the laurel, watered with sweat 
 and tears in so many years of struggle, — my only hope 
 of consolation since the day when my breast received 
 the wound that never heals. thou Goddess of Glory, 
 as adorable as thou art detestable ! Leaden feet thou 
 hast for approaching him who calls thee ; wings, for 
 flight. One suffers if he await thee ; still more, if at last 
 he enjoy thee ; if then again he lose thee, a thousand 
 times more poignant his suffering. What wonder that 
 the longing to hold thee fast should stifle the voice of 
 honor and of virtue? That instant when I learned that 
 Yorick sought to injure me, I should have stricken him 
 with the story of his shame. The surest, speediest 
 revenge is best. Let my rival win a triumph on the 
 boards, destroying my glory, and 'tis too late for ven- 
 geance. I gave my word to keep the secret ; my word — 
 how can I but fulfill it? So strange a spell tliis 
 Shakespeare casts o 'er me ! So masterful a fear ! . . . 
 And, certes, Yorick 's jealous, lie tries to hide it in the 
 pocket of his heart; but jealousy shows ever in one's face. 
 Mere chance performed a part of what was mine to do.
 
 ACT II — SCENE 11 65 
 
 What tho Shakespeare spent his utmost wit on the 
 attempt to hide it. . . . Let but suspicion once transfix 
 the soul, there's naught to do but to pursue the truth 
 till one has put his hand upon it. And who knows but 
 the jealousy that burns within, may be the flame of 
 inspiration for the actor's counterfeit? 'Twould be the 
 last straw : that even the misfortunes of my enemy should 
 turn against me. — Ah ! Is it you ? (Changing his tone on 
 seeing Y crick enter thru door at rear.) Thank God ! I 
 was beginning to tire of awaiting you. 
 
 SCENE TWO 
 
 Walton and Yorick 
 
 YOBICK 
 
 You, here? 
 
 Walton 
 
 Hearing you sought me after the rehearsal, I come 
 to see in what way I can serve you. (Yorick looks at him 
 in silence.) Say, then, something you would ask ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I wished only. . . . (Becoming confused.) I will 
 tell you. 
 
 Walton 
 (Aside.) What can it be?
 
 -66 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 (Seating himself.) 
 I've done a deal of walkiug. . . I am tired — tired 
 out. 
 
 W.VLTON 
 
 Well, rest, then. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I thought to find relief with the fresh air of the 
 fields, but my hope was vain. 
 
 Walton 
 With a joy that he cannot repress. 
 What? Are you ill? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 I feel a kind of restlessness .... discomfort. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 Let's see, let's see. . . . (Feeling his ha7ids and 
 brow.) You are on fire. Nay, I believe you have a fever. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 'Tis possible. 
 
 Walton 
 Why not dispatch a messenger to William ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 To William? (With anger, and rising suddenly.) 
 Wherefore ?
 
 ACT II — SCENE n 67 
 
 Walton 
 Perhaps you can't go on, tonight. Perchance the 
 play must be postponed. . . . 
 
 With affected solicitude. 
 
 YORICK , 
 
 My trouble's not so serious. 
 
 Walton 
 Let us cease this childishness; I'll go in search of 
 William, and . . . 
 
 Taking a few steps toward hack. 
 
 YOBICK 
 
 I tell you, I 've no wish to see him. I tell you I must 
 play. 
 
 Walton 
 With irony, returning to his side. 
 Since you have hopes this night to attain a 
 triumph. . . .! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 A triumph. . , Yes, a triumph. . . . (As if think- 
 ing of something else.) Walton. . . . (Without daring 
 to continue.) 
 
 Walton 
 
 What ? (Rudely.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Walton. . . .
 
 68 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 Such am I called. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Make not sport of me, (Disconcerted.) 
 
 Walton 
 My faith, your wits seem wandering. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Know, then, I have one weakness that's incorrigible. 
 
 Walton 
 One only? You are fortunate. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 An overmastering curiosity. 
 Walton 
 Adam and Eve were the parents of the human race. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 You shall see. This morning you were holding con- 
 verse, you and William, in a very dark corner of the 
 stage. And chancing to draw near you I heard you 
 saying. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 
 What? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 (Aside.) He becomes confused. (Aloud.) I heard 
 you saying: "I have not broken my promise: Yorick 
 knows nothing through me."
 
 ACT U — SCENE 11 
 
 69 
 
 Walton 
 So then you heard. . . . ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What I have just repeated, nothing more. 
 
 Walton 
 Well? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well, my so great curiosity is urging me to find what 
 this thing is that William bade you hide from me. 
 Walton 
 Nay, you are inquisitive indeed. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I warned you of it at the first. 
 
 Walton 
 You have, besides, another weakness. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What is 't? 
 
 Walton 
 That of dreaming when awake. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What leads you to suspect it ? 
 
 Walton 
 You think to have heard me utter words that never 
 left my lips. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No?
 
 70 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 No. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 It seems like vdtehcraft. 
 
 Walton 
 Going to take his hat. 
 And if you have no further commands. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 (Aside.) I do not clear my doubt. (Aloud.) Walton ! 
 Walton 
 Taking a few steps toward Yorick with hat in hand. 
 You call me ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Yes ; to offer my congratulations. 
 
 Walton 
 Wherefore ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Because you lie so ill. 
 
 Walton 
 Nor well nor ill. I lie not. 
 
 Yorick 
 Nay, you lie ! (With sudden anger.) 
 
 Walton 
 Yorick ! 
 
 Yorick 
 You lie!
 
 act ii — scene u 71 
 
 Walton 
 Faith, have you lost your reason ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I keep it, certes, since I say you lie. 
 
 Walton 
 I shall give proof of meekness by turning my back 
 on you. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In a threatening tone. 
 You shall not leave before you tell me what 'tis you 
 have offered to keep silent. 
 
 Walton 
 Without heing aile to contain himself. 
 If I have offered to keep it silent, pray how expect 
 you I should tell it you? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Ah ! So I did not dream ? So verily beyond denial 
 I heard the words you have but now denied? 
 Walton 
 Leave me in peace. Good-bye. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Walton, speak, in pity's name. 
 
 Walton 
 Yorick, in pity's name, I shall keep silence. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Then 'tis a mischief that's being hidden from me?
 
 72 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 An if you could dmne how rash is your insistence, 
 how heroic my refusal ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 By my life, I swear that you shall speak. 
 
 Walton 
 On my word, you do deserve that I should speak. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Out with it. 
 
 Walton 
 Ah! (Determined to tell what is asked.) No. 
 (Changing his mind.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No? 
 
 Walton 
 No. (Coldly.) 
 
 YOBICK 
 
 I give you this half hour to decide. 
 
 Walton 
 You threaten me? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 So 'twould seem. 
 
 Walton 
 Hear me ! ,
 
 ACT II — SCENE II 73 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Withiii but half an hour I'll seek you out to learn 
 your final answer. 
 
 Walton 
 And if you find me not? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 I'll say you are afraid, 
 
 Walton 
 Of whom? Of you? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Of me. 
 
 Walton 
 I shaU be here within the half hour. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You will come ? 
 
 Walton 
 Be assured I will. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 To reveal to me at last what you do now refuse ? 
 
 Walton 
 
 Nay, but to see what you will do when once more I 
 refuse to sate your curiosity. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Tis bad to play with fire ; a thousand times more 
 perilous to play with the despair of a man.
 
 74 tamayo y baus — a xew drama 
 
 Walton 
 You are in despair ? / 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Leave me. 
 
 Walton 
 At once. Still friends are we ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No Yes. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 Yes or no ? / 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No. 
 
 Walton 
 Then I need not offer you my hand. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 We shall be friends forever if you will change your 
 purpose. 
 
 Walton 
 I '11 see you in a half hour, Yorick. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Within a half hour, Walton. 
 
 Walton 
 Saluting Edmund, who comes through door at rear. 
 Heaven save you, Edmund. 
 
 Edmund 
 And you. (Dryly.)
 
 act ii — scene 111 75 
 
 Walton 
 Aside, as he goes to rear. 
 If he insists on knowing this, 'twill make refusal but 
 the easier. 
 
 SCENE THREE 
 
 Edmund and Yorick 
 
 Yorick strides back and forth in uncontrollable 
 
 restlessness. 
 
 Yorick 
 
 Greetings, Master Edmund. What miracle has 
 
 brought you here at last ? 
 
 Edmund 
 Well, as this morning you were chiding me for my 
 not coming. . . . 
 
 Yorick 
 And now you come because I chid you, eh? On 
 that score only? 
 
 Edmund 
 No. ... I would say. . . (Embarrassed.) 
 
 Yorick 
 Seek no excuse. 
 
 Edmund 
 You are preoccupied, methinks. . . . restless. . . . 
 
 doubtless the first performance of the drama 
 
 Seeking something to say.
 
 76 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 The first performance of the drama. . . cer- 
 tainly. . . . that's it. . . . 
 
 Talking mechanically, abstracted in his meditation. He 
 
 continues walking ahout with step now slow, now 
 
 very hurried; stopes at times; again seats 
 
 himself in the chair nearest at hand, 
 
 showing in all his actions the agitation 
 
 which dominates him. 
 
 Edmund 
 On your part, none the less, there is no cause for 
 fear. The public loves you blindly. . . Tonight as usual 
 'twill reward your merit, and. . . 
 
 Noting that Yorick is not listening, he ceases speaking, 
 
 sits down, and with terror watches Yorick, who 
 
 continues his agitated movements. Pause. 
 
 Yorick 
 What were you saying ? Speak. ... I am listening. 
 (Without stopping.) 
 
 Edmund 
 (Aside.) He will learn all at last. There is no 
 remedy. 
 
 Yorick 
 Do you not speak?
 
 ACT II — SCENE m 77 
 
 Edmund 
 Ay, sir. . . I was saying that the drama this eve- 
 ning. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You have not asked me of Alice. Why have you not 
 asked of her? 
 
 Stopping suddenly before Edmund. 
 Edmund 
 Since I this morning saw her in the rehearsal. . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Yes. . . that's true. . . 
 
 Again walking across the stage. 
 Edmund 
 (Aside.) His doubts were every moment growing — 
 they have reached their climax. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well, the performance this evening ? 
 
 Edmund 
 
 I am assured 'twill please. It has appeal and 
 action ; 'tis the work of an unknown author, aud envy 
 will not war on him. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 It cannot be ! 
 
 Speaking to himself and stamping on the floor. 
 
 Edmund 
 Oh ! (Rising.)
 
 78 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What, did I speak? These days I have a way of 
 speaking when I know scarcely what I speak. I am not 
 well, these days. 
 
 Touching his forehead. 
 
 Edmund 
 You are ill ? What ails you ? 
 
 With tenderness, approaching him. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 A role so long and difficult. . . . the rehearsals. . . . 
 the excessive study. . . . but there is naught to fear, 
 'twill all pass over. ... it has passed. Let's have a talk 
 awhile here, us two. (Seating himself on the taMe.) We 
 were talking of. . . of what. . . . Ah, yes, of the new 
 drama. If one may judge by the rehearsals, your role 
 pleases you little ? And Alice ? How do you find her in 
 the role of disloyal spouse ? 
 
 Edmund 
 Excellent, altogether excellent. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Excellent, eh ? 
 Impetuously, jumping from the table to floor. 
 
 Edmund 
 Ay, sir I believe. . . .
 
 ACT II — SCENE m 79 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You see how well it pleases me that you. . . . (Con- 
 taining himself, and dissiimulating.) Edmund, come 
 here. (Taking a sudden resolution and going close to 
 him.) Tell me: have you e'er felt a furious tempest 
 break forth in your heart? Could you for long prevent 
 its flashes being seen, its thunder heard? Is it possible 
 to suffer and keep silence? Is't not true that suffering 
 at last wrings from the most long-suffering and valorous 
 their pitiful moans ? Does misery do well in letting some 
 insufferable burden crush it, without a cry to friendship 
 for its aid? And are you not my son, my beloved son? 
 Edmund 
 
 Ah, yes, your son ! (Embracing him.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Love your father well. . Ah ! I have much need for 
 one to love me ! Because it is for you to learn, Edmund, 
 that Alice. . Oh, how my lips rebel at uttering these 
 words! If only I could say them, yet keep them from 
 my own ears ! Alice loves me not ! 
 Edmund 
 
 Heavens ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You see the awfulness of this misfortune ! It seems 
 impossible that there should be a greater. It seems 
 impossible, does it not V Well, listen : Alice loves another !
 
 80 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 There have you a misfortune still more awful — more 
 awful ! (Much moved.) 
 
 Edmund 
 But you are sure in error. How know you that your 
 wife. . . ? Who has induced you to believe it ? 
 With wrath in this last phrase. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 On hearing me call her "faithless spouse", with the 
 words of that cursed drama which sounded in her ears 
 like truth, she was so overwhelmed that she fell fainting 
 to the floor. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Nay, then, why be surprised — so delicate and sensi- 
 tive is she that at the slightest unexpected noise she's 
 shaken and distracted ? This William told you. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Ay, verily, he did. (Ironically.) And Alice, as she 
 fainted, begged for pardon. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Disturbed by your acusing voice, her mind like a 
 blind machine followed the given impulse. That William 
 told you too. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Tis true he also told me that. ( With irony as be- 
 fore.) But in my breast there was left a little thorn — 
 a little thorn which very soon became a burning iron.
 
 ACT II — SCENE m 81 
 
 Till then I was not wont to see aught, notice aught. The 
 light of happiness dazzles even as the light of the sun. 
 But when my sky of happiness o'erelouded, all things 
 stood clear and open to my eyes. I recalled a "yes" as 
 ardent as love ; and another ' ' yes ' ' lukewarm like grati- 
 tude: 'tis only out of love that love makes bonds that 
 will not break. I recalled tears shed out of season, 
 frights and forebodings without apparent cause. She 
 seemed to me more young than ever — more bewitching; 
 and with bewilderment I saw myself as one grown old 
 and ugly. Now every moment brings new food for my 
 suspicious, for Alice makes no longer even the attempt 
 to feign or to deceive ; tlie weight of guilt crushes her will. 
 I look at her, and she is shaken and distraught, as if my 
 glances had some wizard power to pierce her heart like 
 wounding darts. She never speaks to me but that her 
 trembling lips reveal the trembling of her conscience. 
 Does a rebellious tear show sometimes in her eye? Oh, 
 how she struggles to force it back again within herself ! 
 And what torture it is to see the tears swell ever larger 
 beneath the restraining lids. Or does she strive to laugh, 
 perchance? Her laughter's sadder than her tears. Oh, 
 yes! my Edmund, I would swear it before God; Alice 
 hides a hideous secret in her breast. At last have I be- 
 come convinced of it — with terror ! — with greater terror 
 than if I saw before me suddenly the pure azure of the
 
 82 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 heavens to open, and disclose the horrors and the shades 
 of hell. Who is the thief of my happiness? the thief of 
 her innocence ? Answer. Don 't tell me you do not know : 
 it were useless. I should not believe you. Who is it? 
 You do not speak? You ^dll not speak? Dear God, 
 what world is this in which crime always finds so many 
 accomplices ? 
 
 Edmund 
 To see you suffer bitterness so cruel leaves me with- 
 out strength even to open ray lips. I repeat that you 
 suspect without a cause, that I know nothing. , . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Why have you ever been disdainful toward Alice? 
 Why have you ceased to frequent this house? Because 
 you knew that that woman was deceiving your father: 
 because you would not by your presence stand sponsor 
 for my shame. 
 
 Edmund 
 Oh, believe it not — so fatal an illusion ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Yet have I said that I begin to see aright; that I 
 begin to understand it all. Do you not know who is my 
 rival? Help me to find him. Can it be Walton, per- 
 chance ?
 
 ACT II — SCENE ni 83 
 
 Edmund 
 How dare you to imagine, even. . . .? (With indig- 
 nation.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Take no pains to dissuade me. Nay, certes, 'tis not 
 Walton. Pass him by. — Perchance it is Lord Stanley ? 
 Edmund 
 
 Lord Stanley? Because the other night he spoke 
 with her a moment? . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Silence, go no further. 'Tis not he, neither. Myself, 
 I realized that. Can it be the Earl of Southampton, the 
 friend of — of Shakespeare? 
 
 With difficulty pronouncing this last name. 
 Edmund 
 See, now, you are beside yourself. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Who is it, then ? Ay, beyond question, it must be he, 
 the one I least should wish it. The treason of the wife 
 is not sufficient; still must I mourn the treason of the 
 friend. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Suspect no one. No rival exists. Alice is not guilty. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In any case I shall clear up my doubt at once. . . 
 Whether she be guilty or not, at once I am to learn it. 
 Going toward door at left.
 
 84 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 What would you do ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Nothing. (Returning to Edmund's side.) The most 
 natural thing in the world : ask her. 
 
 Edmund 
 Not that! (Horrified.) 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And why ? Can I do more than trust her word ? 
 
 Edmund 
 But how if you accuse her without motive ? If she 
 is innocent ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 If she is innocent why trembles she, why tremble I, 
 why tremble you ? 
 
 Edmund 
 Time will clear up your doubts. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 That time which human fancy measures, now and 
 again stands still, and puts souls into terror and con- 
 fusion with a foreglimpsed eternity. For days past time 
 has not budged for me. I would come back to life. 
 
 Edmund 
 Wait another day, only another day. 
 Seizing his hand.
 
 ACT II — SCENE UI 85 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Not a day, not an hour, not an instant more. Loose 
 your hold. 
 
 Struggling to release his hand from Edmund's. 
 
 Edmund 
 Ask it not. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Insufferable obstinacy ! Why, the boy 's perverse ! 
 Struggling to release himself. 
 Edmund 
 Hear me. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 A simpleton to boot. Unhand me ! 
 Makes a violent effort, and succeeds in getting away. 
 Edmund 
 Oh! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 But there 's no remedy. . . I must learn it all. . . . ! 
 (With fury.) 
 
 Edmund 
 Be merciful! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 But if I have no wish to be merciful 1 
 Changing his tone, and with tearful voice. He goes out 
 hy left door.
 
 86 TAMAYO T BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 SCENE FOUR 
 
 Edmund and Alice 
 
 Edmund 
 The wrath of heaven! — Ah! (Seeing Alice, who 
 appears thru hangings that cover door at right, and 
 stands motionless, in dejection and despair. Brief pause, 
 after which Edmund runs to her, and brings her to 
 front.) Did you hear ? 
 
 Alice 
 Yes. 
 
 Edmund 
 At dawn tomorrow there's a bark sets sail for some 
 far clime. The captain is my friend. Let us flee. 
 In a low voice and very rapidly. 
 Alice 
 No. 
 
 Edmund 
 'Twixt now and night-fall will the means of flight 
 be planned. 
 
 Alice 
 No. 
 
 Edmund 
 If there be no way else to inform you of them, you'll 
 have a letter in the theatre, and in it you will learn what 
 I have fixed upon — what each of us must do.
 
 ACT n — SCENE IV 87 
 
 Alice 
 
 No. 
 
 Edmund 
 Your husband will discover everything. 
 
 Alice 
 Heaven's will be done, 
 
 Edmund 
 And what is to become of you? 
 
 Alice 
 What matter ! 
 
 Edmund 
 What will become of us both ? 
 Alice 
 
 You shall flee. 
 Alone ? Never. 
 Flee. 
 With you. 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Alice 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Alice 
 A thousand times no ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Alice ! Alice ! 
 
 In the wings, calling. Alice starts.
 
 88 tamayo y baus — a new deama 
 
 Edmund 
 You see ? Even now you cannot breathe, you scarce 
 can stand. 
 
 Alice 
 He seeks me. 
 
 With terror. 
 Edmund 
 To ask if you are guilty. What will you answer ? 
 
 Alice 
 What can I answer ? That I am ! 
 With firmness. 
 Edmund 
 And afterwards? 
 
 Alice 
 Afterwards. . . . ? Do you think he will be capable 
 of killing me? (As tho animated iy a flattering hope.) 
 Oh, if he would kill me ! . . . . 
 
 Showing joy. 
 Edmund 
 His fury or your own grief will put an end to your 
 life. 
 
 Alice 
 In truth ? What comfort ! 
 
 Edmund 
 And you seek not your own death alone, but mine 
 as well.
 
 Yours! 
 
 Alice! 
 
 act ii — scene iv 89 
 
 Alice 
 
 With pain and surprise. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Outside, J)ut nearer. 
 
 Edmund 
 He is coming. 
 
 Alice 
 
 I shall keep silence. ... I shall feign .... 
 
 Shamelessness, give me thine effrontery, and with it let 
 
 the criminal mock the judge. I cannot be more wretched ; 
 
 but have no fear, no fear ; still can I be more despicable. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Alice ! 
 
 Alice 
 Here am I. Come hither. 
 Going toward where Torick's voice sounds. 
 
 Edmund 
 Wait ! 
 
 Yorick enters at the left.
 
 90 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 SCENE FIVE 
 
 The Same and Yorick 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Ah! 
 
 Becoming confused at sight of Alice. 
 Alice 
 You are seeking me, and I you, and it seems as we 
 were fleeing one another. 
 
 Smiling, with apparent serenity. 
 Yorick 
 (Aside.) Is this woman joyous now? (To Edmund.) 
 A moment must I speak alone with Alice. Await me in 
 my room. 
 
 Edmund 
 Aside, as he goes out door at right. 
 If need be, I'll defend her. 
 
 SCENE SIX 
 
 Yorick and Alice 
 
 Yorick contemplates Alice a moment in silence. Then 
 
 seats himself on the settle. 
 
 Yorick 
 Come hither, Alice, come. (Alice takes a few steps 
 toward him.) Come nearer. (She goes nearer.) Sit 
 down at my side. Perhaps you are afraid of me.
 
 act ii — scene vi 91 
 
 Alice 
 Afraid? Why? 
 
 Sitting heside Yorick. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 (Aside.) She seems a different woman. 
 
 Alice 
 What do you want of me ? 
 
 Yorick gets up. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 (Aside.) She serene, I confused. . . . There's a trans- 
 gressor here. Is it she? Is it I? 
 
 Alice 
 
 (Aside.) My strength is leaving me. 
 Yorick sits again. 
 Yorick 
 
 Alice, 'tis common for a man to awake to love a1^ 
 the first light of youth. Then runs he wildly in pursuit 
 of the pleasure which he sees before him. In the bram- 
 bles of life's highway he gets entangled, — one and 
 another amour, futile and shameful, leaving in each one 
 of them a fragment of his heart. Whole and pure was 
 mine when I saw you and loved you. And ah ! how 
 lively is love's strength in the autumn of one's years 
 when hitherto one has not loved and when it is no longer 
 possible ever to love again ! Thus I love you, Alice. Do 
 you love me, as your heart can love ? Answer.
 
 92. tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 I. . . . Certainly. ... I owe you so many kind- 
 nesses. . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Kindnesses. . . ! Why, we talk not now of kind- 
 nesses! Do you love me? 
 
 Alice 
 Don 't you know that I do ? Am I not your wife ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Do you love me ? 
 
 Alice 
 Yes, sir, yes; I love you. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In very truth. ... in honesty? Can I believe it? 
 (With inner joy.) For God's sake tell me the truth. 
 You love no one but me ? No one ? 
 
 Alice 
 Why do you ask me? 
 
 Frightened and trying to rise. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You do not love another? 
 
 With energy, restraining her. 
 
 Alice 
 Nay, sir, nay. . .
 
 ACT II — SCENE VI 93 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Have a care, for I think you are deceiving me. Ah ! 
 (Conceiving a flattering hope.) Perchance you love 
 another and have not yet declared your love. If that be 
 true, do not hesitate to confess it to me. Humbly would 
 I accept the punishment for having desired as a wife one 
 who might have been my daughter : not with the severity 
 of a husband, but with the gentleness of a father would 
 I hear your confession: I would make plain to you the 
 difference there is between the wicked love that pleases 
 hell, and the wifely love that heaven awaits with palms 
 and crowns. I should redouble my cares and kindnesses 
 toward you, showing you my affection with ever gentler 
 and more powerful charms. Continually would I raise 
 prayers to Him who can do all not to loose thee from His 
 hand ; and doubt it not, my glory, light of my eyes, doubt 
 it not, Alice my beloved, I should succeed at last in con- 
 quering my rival, in winning your whole heart, and in 
 returning you to the path of honor and of happiness; 
 for you are good, your heart noble and generous; you 
 may fall thru error, not through deliberate purpose ; and 
 once the ugliness of sin be known, you will flee from it in 
 horror; and knowing my affection. . . . Oh, my girl, 
 believe me, one who loves so much can be loved a little 
 in return.
 
 94 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 (Aside.) I am stifling, dying. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 You say nothing? You are silent? You love and 
 have already declared your love ? Nay, hide it not from 
 me. Justice requires that guilt be punished. The woman 
 who wrongs her husband ought not to remain unpun- 
 ished. . . And if his sole desire in life be but to shield 
 her from the least vexation, no other happiness than only 
 to adore her, no other existence save what comes from 
 her; if for that unhappy man it is all one to lose his 
 wife's affection, or to despair and die; and if she knows 
 it, and condemns him to suffer the tortures of the damned 
 in this life and the next. . . . Oh, then the iniquity is 
 so great that the mind cannot embrace it ; so great that 
 it seems a lie! ... . Nay, why, I cannot think that 
 
 you Toward me such infamy? Toward me? 
 
 You can have been capable. . . . ? No no 
 
 Why, 1 tell you I cannot think it. ... I cannot believe 
 it. ... I M'ill not believe it ! (Covering his face with his 
 hands and weeping heavily . Alice while Yorick is speak- 
 ing gives indications of constantly increasing anxiety and 
 grief. She tries several times to rise, hut her husband 
 restrains her; conquered at last by her emotions she slips 
 gradually to the floor until she remains on her knees 
 before Yorick. When the latter sees, on removing his
 
 ACT II — SCENE VI 95 
 
 hands from his eyes, that Alice is kneeling, he leaves 
 her in fury.) Kneeling? (Alice leans her head on the 
 settle, her back to the audience.) Kneeling ! If she were 
 innocent she would not kneel. So then I was not in 
 error ? — Wretch ! (He goes rapidly toward his wife, with 
 a threatening gesture. Seeing that she does not move, he 
 stops a moment and then approaches her with an entirely 
 different expression.) What is this? What's the mat- 
 ter ? (Raising her head a7id placing a hand on her hrow.) 
 Unburden yourself. . . . Weep. . . . (Alice breaks into 
 bitter sobs.) Are you going to die. . , . ? But what am 
 I doing? (Controlling himself.) What matters it to me 
 whether she die? (With new indignation, leaving her.) 
 No, she will not die, her grief 's a lie, her tears are a lie ! 
 All is a lie ! She is a woman. 
 
 Alice 
 Ah! 
 Her breathing stops and she falls prone on the floor, 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Alice ! (Running to her again in surprise.) Alice ! 
 Come, that's all past. . . . Calm yourself. . . . Tomor- 
 row we shall see what must be done. . . . Today we must 
 think of other things. The drama of this evening. . . . 
 Rouse yourself. . . . Courage, for God's sake! (Shake- 
 speare appears at rear door. Yorick straightens up 
 suddenly and places himself before his wife as tho to
 
 96 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 hide her.) Eh ! Who is it? What's wanted? Why does 
 anyone enter here? 
 
 SCENE SEVEN , 
 
 The Same and Shakespeare 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Are you so blind that you do not know me ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Shakespeare ! He ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Rise, Alice. 
 
 Approaching her. 
 
 YORICK ' , 
 
 Don't touch her! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Since you have taken to tragedy you have become 
 intolerable. 
 
 He causes Alice to rise, and she stands leaning against 
 
 him and continues to weep in anguish. 
 
 Yorick 
 
 Did I not forbid you to touch her ? 
 
 Approaching his wife. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Stand back. 
 
 With great calm, stretching out his arm to restrain him.
 
 ACT n — SCENE vn 97 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Am I dreaming ? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 I would swear that you are. Or rather that you are 
 drunk or mad. Let us go to your room, Alice. 
 
 He goes slowly with her toward the door at left. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What! You? (Following them.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Wait a little. (Stopping a moment.) We two shall 
 talk anon. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Are you an insensible stone in human form? 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Are you a woman in a man 's form ? 
 He begins to walk again. 
 
 Yorick 
 
 I have said that Alice is not to leave me ! 
 
 Recovering his vigor and going toward his wife as if to 
 
 separate her from Shakespeare. The latter, leaving 
 
 Alice, who leans on the table with both hands, 
 
 impels Yorick toward the front with 
 
 imposing serenity, looking him 
 
 fixedly in the eyes.
 
 98 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Shakespeare 
 I bade you wait awhile ! 
 
 He returns slowly to the side of Alice and goes with her 
 through the door at left ivithout for a moment 
 taking his glance from Yorick, who 
 remains motionless, stupefied. 
 
 SCENE EIGHT 
 Yorick 
 
 After a hrief pause he puts his hand to his head and^ 
 looks about him as if wakening from a dream. 
 
 Yorick 
 What is this? Has the reality of life been trans- 
 formed into a marvelous drama whose denouement can- 
 not be foreseen? Am I the victim of obscure machina- 
 tions of witches, goblins, or demons? . . . Shake- 
 speare ! . . . Yes, there is no doubt . . . no, no ; impossible ! 
 What torture, always to live in darkness ! Light ! God 
 eternal, give me light ! — And he went away with her ! . . . 
 They are together ! . . . Damnation ! 1 shall separate 
 them! 
 
 Going toward door through which Shakespeare and Alice 
 had gone.
 
 ACT II — SCENE IX 99 
 
 SCENE NINE 
 YoRiCK and Walton 
 
 Walton 
 As he appears at door at hack. 
 Time's up. And here I am. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 With an appearance of extraordinary joviality. 
 Oh, it's Walton! — Welcome, Walton, welcome 
 heartily. 
 
 Walton 
 Well met, Yorick. 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 This is, methinks, to keep one's promise faithfully. 
 
 Walton 
 Not otherwise do I keep mine. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And I warrant you come determined still to hide 
 from me what I would leam. 
 
 Walton 
 Assuredly. 
 
 Yorick 
 And for that threat of mine, you'd show me now 
 your 're not afraid of me. 
 
 Walton 
 Precisely.
 
 100 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 'Tis thus I like to see men ! Well, for us there '11 be 
 no quarrel. (Placing a hand on his shoulder.) Away 
 with trifles! 
 
 Walton 
 
 As you will. In faith I thought not to find you so 
 reasonable. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Well, there's no longer any necessity for your tell- 
 ing me anything. 'Tis I, on t'other side, who'll tell 
 you a mightily facetious little story. 
 
 Walton 
 You'll tell it me? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 There was once upon a time a youth of tender age, 
 full of ardour, full of fire. He fell madly in love with a 
 very beautiful lady. (Walton shudders.) She returned 
 his love. What joy ! They married. Measureless glory ! 
 
 Walton 
 Very much disturbed. 
 Where are you going to stop? 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 In peace were they enjoying all that happiness when 
 one night as the youth returned home unexpectedly, 
 behold he finds his wife. . .
 
 act ii — scene ix 101 
 
 Walton 
 'Tis false. 'Tis a lie ! 
 
 Impetuously, unable to contain himself. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Behold he finds his wife in the arms of a man. 
 
 Walton 
 Damnation ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Damnation he probably said, for the ease would 
 warrant as much. And imagine what he afterwards 
 would say on learning that that man, a lord of high 
 degree, from a long time back had been in amorous rela- 
 tions with his wife. 
 
 Walton 
 
 Stop ! 'Tis a vile calumny ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 He determined to take vengeance on his spouse, but 
 the spouse vanished forever by magic art. 
 Walton 
 Will you be silent? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 He determined to take vengeance on the lover, and 
 the lover had his servants beat him unmercifully, 
 Walton 
 Blind with rage, seizing Yorick hy his arm. 
 What, still you'll not be silent?
 
 102 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And still you will not speak? {In the same tone as 
 Walton, and seizing him by the arm.) Ha, ha, ha ! The 
 little story seems to have pleased you. {Laughing.) 
 Today the cudgelled husband, with a different vocation 
 and twenty years more than he then had, far from the 
 place of the occurrence, believes it to be buried in pro- 
 found obscurity; but the poor fool is deceived. 'Tis 
 known he bears a false name to hide the real one which 
 had been stained with dishonor. 
 
 Speaking with new energy. 
 
 Walton 
 Know you what you are doing, Yorick? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And there lack not those who point at him the finger 
 of scorn. 
 
 Walton 
 Oh, madness! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 There lack not those who say as they see him pass, 
 * ' There goes an infamous man ; because the husband, out- 
 raged and unavenged, is infaiHoais." 
 
 Walton 
 Then who more infamous than you?
 
 ACT II — SCENE IX 103 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Eh? How say you? You are speaking at last? 
 Go on. Make youself plain. . . Speak. . . 
 
 Walton 
 I at least discovered the deception at once. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Speak ! 
 
 Walton 
 I at least made trial to avenge myself. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And I? Speak! And I? 
 
 Walton 
 You arc blind. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Speak ! 
 
 Walton 
 You live in peace with dishonor. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Speak ! 
 
 Walton 
 Your wife. . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 My wife. . . ? Speak! . . . Nay, be silent, or by 
 God, I'll tear your tongue out!
 
 104 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 Do you perceive? You are more infamous than I. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 My wife. . . ? 
 Deceives you. 
 
 Walton 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Deceives me? Let me see it; prove it to me. You 
 have unquestionably convincing proofs, proofs clearer 
 than the light of the sun. So horrible an accusation is not 
 launched unless i it can be justified. Well, then, give me 
 the proofs; give them to me. Why do you delay? You 
 have no proofs? — In very truth he has none. — He has 
 none ! That knew I absolutely ! — This man does dare 
 to call an angel devil and would be credited on his mere 
 word. 
 
 Walton 
 
 I say again that Alice is unfaithful to you. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I say again that you shall prove it. ( Going close to 
 Walton.) And if you do not instant prove it, say you 
 have lied ; say Alice is an honourable wife ; say that she 
 loves no one but me ; say that the world respects her and 
 admires her; say that heaven delights itself in contem- 
 plation of her. Say it! Zounds, you shall say it!
 
 ACT n — SCENE X ^ 105 
 
 Walton 
 Alice has a lover. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 That you say ? 
 
 Walton 
 Yes. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 And do not prove it ? Woe on you, wretch, for never 
 will you say that word again ! 
 
 Hurling himself at Walton as if to strangle him. 
 
 SCENE TEN 
 
 The Same; Alice, Shakespeare, and Edmund 
 
 Shakespeare and Alice enter from the left, and Edmund 
 from the right. 
 Edmund and Alice 
 Ah! 
 
 Shajkespeare 
 Placing himself between Yorick and Walton. 
 Hold! 
 
 Walton 
 Confounded on seeing him. 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Low to Walton, with a very heated look. 
 To break a promise is a villainy supreme.
 
 106 tamato y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 Oh! (Showing the effect that Shakespeare's words 
 have had on him. Then he goes rapidly toward the rear.) 
 You will reap tears of blood for this thing you have 
 done. (To Yorick. Exit.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What has he told you ? 
 
 Yorick 
 What I already knew. That my wife has a lover. 
 That lover is yourself ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 I? 
 
 Alice 
 God in heaven ! . . . . 
 
 Edmund 
 Approaching Yorick as if to speak to him. 
 Ah! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 (With wrath) I ! You fool ! (Bursting sud- 
 denly into laughter.) By heaven, I needs must laugh 
 at you. 
 
 Yorick 
 Not he ! — Not you ? 'Tis not my friend who wrongs 
 and kills me? (With tender emotion.) Then my mis- 
 fortune holds some comfort. I apprehended two be-
 
 ACT II — SCENE X 107 
 
 trayals, and one's disproved. William, pardon; pardon 
 me ! I am so full of misery. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Fervently, much moved. 
 Then if you are unhappy, come here and weep on a 
 loyal breast. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Throwing himself into his arms, and breaking down. 
 William ! My beloved William ! 
 Edmund 
 In a tone low hut full of terror. 
 Alice? .... 
 
 Alice 
 With an accent of despair. 
 Yes! 
 
 Edmund 
 Tomorrow ! 
 
 Alice 
 Tomorrow ! 
 Edmund goes through door at rear, Alice at right; 
 Yorick and Shakespeare remain in each others' arms. 
 
 Curtain
 
 ACT THREE 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 The room of Yorick and Alice in the theatre. A long 
 table with a cover, two small mirrors, theatre trappings 
 and lights; two clothes racks, the clothing thereon cov- 
 ered hy long curtains. A few chairs. A door at the 
 right, which opens onto the stage. 
 
 SCENE ONE 
 
 The Author and the Prompter's Attendant. 
 
 They enter from door at right. The Attendant carries 
 
 an open manuscript in his hand, and a theatre lamp 
 
 with a lighted candle. 
 
 Attendant 
 Sure Mistress Alice would keep water here. 
 
 Author 
 Ay, here's a bottle. 
 
 Pointing to a bottle on the table. 
 Attendant 
 There ! 
 Pouring water into a glass. The Author drinks.
 
 110 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Author 
 Ah, now I breathe again. . . . My heart was in my 
 throat. . . . My sight began to cloud. ... So many 
 emotions! . . , Such joy! . . . Ouf. . . . (He takes a 
 theatre-hill and fans himself tvith it.) Well, now, tell 
 me, master Thomas, what think you of my drama? 
 
 Attendant 
 What think I? Gad! The prettiest thing! . . . 
 And this last act will fetch 'em like the rest. 
 
 Author 
 Heaven grant you be not in error. 
 
 Attendant 
 In error — I? 'Slife, I'm no fool. ... I said — the 
 first rehearsal — your play'd please 'em nigh as much as 
 one of Shakespeare's. 
 
 Author 
 Shakespeare! . . . Oh, Shakespeare! . . . (With a 
 tone of exaggerated praise.) 'Tis certain there'll be 
 some who'll try to make me overshadow him. . . . But 
 I shall never believe. . . . Oh, never. I am not vain — 
 oh, not in the least.
 
 ACT III— SCENE 11 111 
 
 SCENE TWO 
 
 The Same, and Edmund, the latter in the costume of 
 Manfredo. 
 
 Edmund 
 Tell me, Thomas; Mistress Alice does not leave the 
 stage again until I go on ? 
 
 Attendant 
 Ay, so. 
 
 Leafing over the manuscript. 
 Edmund 
 And I am on the boards until the very end? 
 
 Attendant 
 Well, don't you know you are? .... 
 Leafing again the manuscript. 
 Edmund 
 (Aside.) Once the play's over 'twill be no longer 
 possible to get it into her hands. . . . What a fatality! 
 (Going toward door.) 
 
 Author 
 Let's see, now, Master Edmund, how you comport 
 yourself in the scene of the challenge. Truth to say, I 
 find you . . . well, a little . . . you know ... in the 
 rehearsals you were very much better; so have a care, 
 eh?
 
 112 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Edmund 
 Ay, sir, ay. . . . 
 
 He goes out, rapt in thought, 
 
 SCENE THREE 
 
 The Author, the Attendant; then Walton, the latter 
 in the costume of Landolfo. 
 
 Author 
 He scarcely deigns to answer me ! One breaks his 
 head composing plays like this one, only to have a 
 choleric little comedian. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 Edmund — has he just now left here? 
 To the Attendant. 
 Attendant 
 Ay, sir. 
 
 Walton 
 What was he after? 
 
 Attendant 
 Nothing. — Only to know when Mistress Alice leaves 
 the stage. 
 
 Author 
 Is't not true, Master Walton, that Edmund's play- 
 ing but indifferently? 
 
 Attendant 
 Something must be out with him tonight.
 
 act iii — scene iii 113 
 
 Author 
 In truth, now, twice when I've gone to his room I 
 found him talking low to Dervil, and seeing me they 
 changed their conversation. Actors ought to be forbid- 
 den to receive visitors in the theatre. 
 Walton 
 What's he— this Dervil? 
 
 Author 
 The Captain of some bark that sails in the morning. 
 
 Attendant 
 And mark you, when the Captain's gone, Master 
 Edmund asks for some ink and begins to write a letter. 
 Author 
 To write a letter while a play is on ! 
 
 Walton 
 (Aside.) A letter ... a bark that sails in the 
 morning. . . . 
 
 Attendant 
 Oh, since we speak of letters; here is the one you 
 take on in this act to deliver to Count Octavio. 
 Giving him a paper folded like a letter. 
 Walton 
 Give it to me. 
 He takes the paper and puts it in the pocket of his suit. 
 One hears great applause and murmurs of approval. 
 Walton changes countenance.
 
 114 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Author 
 Eh, how's that? Whose was it? 
 
 Attendant 
 Tush, Master Yoriek's — I'll wages 'twas for him. 
 He hurries out. 
 
 SCENE FOUR 
 Walton and the Author. 
 
 Author 
 How that fellow's playing to night! . . . When I 
 think how I'd have kept him from the role of Count, I 
 could run my head against a wall. But, look you, who'd 
 have dreamed that a comedian, an ordinary player . . . ? 
 From this day on he leaves behind all other actors every- 
 where. Nay, he's gone beyond yourself. 
 
 Walton 
 Indeed ? 
 
 Trying to hide his annoyance. 
 
 Author 
 Far beyond. 
 
 Walton 
 If such is your opinion, think you 'tis fit or prudent 
 to tell me to my face ? 
 
 Seizing him in wrath by one hand and dragging him to 
 
 front.
 
 act iii — scene v 115 
 
 Author 
 Pardon. . . . (Frightened.) I thought . . . the 
 glory of a companion . . . 
 
 Walton 
 You're a fool! . . . 
 Letting go his hand with an air of disdain. 
 Author 
 How say you? I a fool? . . . 
 
 SCENE FIVE 
 
 The Same, and Attendant. 
 
 Attendant 
 Well, even as I said ; that last was all for him. 
 
 Author 
 (Aside.) He is eaten up with envy. (Aloud.) 
 Bravo, Yorick, bravo! (Exit.) 
 
 Attendant 
 And you, what's your opinion of this Yorick? 
 
 Walton 
 You're a good fellow; you work zealously, and I 
 mean to have Shakespeare fatten your wage. 
 Attendant 
 Well, this is kindness ! You know I have four chil- 
 dren — four ! 
 
 Walton 
 So you were asking what I think of Yorick.
 
 116 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Attendant 
 Yes, sir. 
 
 Walton 
 Well, marry, now. . . . What think you of him? 
 Showing himself to he very affable toward the Attendant. 
 Attendant 
 I? 
 
 Walton 
 Yes, tell me. This morning you were saying he 
 would do it miserably. 
 
 Attendant 
 Just so. 
 
 Walton 
 So you, then, think . . . ? (With joy.) 
 
 Attendant 
 Not think: I'm sure indeed. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 Of what? 
 
 Attendant 
 That I was talking nonsense. 
 Walton 
 Ah! ... 
 
 Attendant 
 A rare surprise he's given us. 'Twas plain enough 
 in the first act that he was . . . well . . . something at 
 a loss; but later, marvelous! and how he played some
 
 ACT III — SCENE V 117 
 
 scenes ! — magnificent ! Why, once I stood so mazed 
 alistening to him, I had not wits enough to give the lady's 
 cue ; and but the author was anear me, and brought me 
 round with a mighty yell, the play 'd have ended without 
 more ado. Mark you, Master Walton : when I saw you 
 do Macbeth, saith I, naught could be greater . . . yet 
 now . . . 
 
 Walton 
 
 Go to ! (Interrupting him.) Look you blunder not 
 afresh. 
 
 Attendant 
 
 Eh ? (As tho frightened, and leafing over the manu- 
 script.) No, no, this scene's prodigiously long. — Ay, it 
 can be wagered that as long as Master Yorick's in the 
 company, the well-stuffed parts are for himself alone. 
 Who can dispute them with him? 
 Walton 
 
 By the mass, 3^ou wag an idle tongue. 
 Attendant 
 
 Enthusiasm breeds a deal of talk. And egad ... I 
 am fair daft in Master Yorick's case. And so be all — 
 all save the principals, who murmur on the sly, and give 
 him now and then a covert nip. Envy, and naught 
 besides — pure envy! 
 
 Walton 
 
 Wilt leave me in peace ?
 
 118 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Attendant 
 (Aside.) What a face ! How he glares ! Fool that 
 I am! why, it is himself is losing most. . . . Odso, my 
 little friend, patience, and swallow your gorge ! 
 Walton 
 What mutter you beneath your breath? 
 
 Attendant 
 I mutter not. . . . Quite otherwise — 
 
 Walton 
 Take yourself off, or by my life . . . 
 
 Attendant 
 I go ... I go. .. . (Walton lets himself fall into 
 a chair in exasperation. The Attendant makes mouths at 
 Walton, unperceived. Aside.) Rave . . . rave . . . 
 rave . . . (He goes out.) 
 
 SCENE SIX 
 
 Walton 
 He deliberates a moment. 
 How right my guess! Yorick showered with plau- 
 dits ! What fame ! So big a triumph ! Greater than 
 mine, yea, a thousand times greater! I pardon not his 
 former insult . . . and this thing now, who could for- 
 give it? Yet for my satisfaction where 's a means that 
 seems not common and contemptible ! I 'd have a venge- 
 ance matching the offence, where I might say with pride :
 
 ACT III — SCENE VII 119 
 
 behold, here is a vengeance ! (Another hurst of applause 
 is heard.) Another outburst! (Looks thro door at 
 right.) Ah! (Becoming calmer.) For Alice. She's 
 leaving the stage. . . . Edmund is going on at the same 
 entrance. . . . They look at each other. . . . Ah ! — yea, 
 there's no doubt. . . . 'Twas as rapid as thought, but I 
 caught it plain. . . . Passing, he gave her something. 
 What can it be? Perchance the letter that was men- 
 tioned ? . . . The proof that Yorick demanded of me ? . . 
 Suppose it were a letter! If fate would help me! . . . 
 She comes. . . . Ah ! 
 
 He hides behind the curtain that hangs from one of the 
 
 racks. 
 
 SCENE SEVEN 
 
 Walton and Alice, the latter in the costume of 
 Beatrice. 
 
 Alice enters at right, looking back as she closes the door 
 
 noiselessly; with signs of terror she advances to the 
 
 center, and at last opens her left hand, disclosing a 
 
 paper which she looks at attentively. 
 
 Walton 
 
 Ay, 'tis Edmund's letter. 
 
 With an expression of joy, showing his head for a 
 
 moment through the curtains. Alice rapidly approaches 
 
 the table, where there are lights, and reads the letter 
 
 with visible tremblirig, glancing often toward the door.
 
 120 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 "Till now I've had no certainty that we could flee 
 tomorrow. ... At last, all 's ready . . . tomorrow morn 
 at five I shall await you in the street ... we shall never 
 separate. . . . My love will last as long as life. . . . Let 
 us flee : there is no other escape ; let us flee, my darling 
 Alice, and . . .". (She continues reading in a low 
 voice.) Flee! . . . Abandon that unhappy man! . . . 
 And make the wrong irrevocable . . . ! Eternal shame ! 
 . . . Never ! . . . Death is better. (She holds the paper 
 to the light as if to hum it. Walton, who has come 
 quietly from his hiding place, restrains her arm.) Oh ! 
 (Seizing the paper with the other hand.) Walton ! 
 Retreating in fright. 
 
 Walton 
 It is I. 
 
 Alice 
 Where were you? 
 
 Walton 
 Behind that curtain. 
 
 Alice 
 What do you want? 
 
 W.VLTON 
 
 To see what Edmund says to you in the paper you 
 hold in your hand.
 
 ACT m — SCENE vn 121 
 
 Alice 
 Pity! 
 Leaning on the table with an expression of horror. 
 Walton 
 Give it to me. 
 
 Alice 
 Do not come near me. 
 
 Walton- 
 Why not? 
 
 Alice 
 I shall cry out. 
 
 Walton 
 Do so. 
 
 Alice 
 What is your purpose ? 
 
 Walton 
 You will see. 
 
 Alice 
 To give it to my husband? 
 Walton 
 Perhaps. 
 
 Alice 
 
 Tonight! . . . Here! . . . During the performance 
 
 of the play! . . . 'Twould be an unexampled piece of 
 
 infamy; an atrocious . . . There is no name for such 
 
 a villainy. Oh, pity ! . . . A little pity for him ! Only
 
 122 TAMAYO T BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 for him! I beseech you. . . . By what shall I beseech 
 you? . . . What do you love? What words wiU go the 
 quickest to your heart? Tell me what I must do to 
 convince you. 
 
 Walton 
 
 There's nothing could avail you. I have some need 
 of vengeance. 
 
 Alice 
 
 Then why should you not take it? But why must 
 this your vengeance come tonight? Tomorrow will I 
 give to you this paper, which is scorching my hand: 
 trust me — I swear it. Tomorrow shall my husband know 
 the truth. You shall be present. With his grief and 
 with mine your thirst for vengance shall be satisfied. 
 You '11 not regret that you have waited until the morrow 
 for this satisfaction. You threaten me with death. With 
 more than death. Let me sense its coming. I'll beg you 
 on my knees. (Falling at his feet.) Now am I at your 
 feet. Do you grant me the delay I ask? You do — you 
 grant it, do you not ? Tell me you do. 
 
 Walton 
 No, a thousand times no. 
 
 Alice rises suddenly, filled with rage. 
 
 Alice 
 Ah ! I took him for a man, and he is a demon. •
 
 ACT ni — SCENE vm 123 
 
 Walton 
 I am a man, a man crushed down, a man who takes 
 his vengeance. 
 
 Alice 
 Oh! 
 Seeing Yorick enter through door at right. She thrusts 
 the paper behind her, and sta)tds as though frozen with 
 
 terror. 
 
 SCENE EIGHT 
 
 The Same, and Yorick, the latter in the costume of 
 Count Octavio. 
 
 Yorick 
 What are you doing here? (To Walton, calmly.) 
 Think you it is safe for us to see each other off the stage 
 tonight ? 
 
 Walton 
 Nay, verily; but when you learn what's going for- 
 ward . . . 
 
 Yorick 
 I want to know nothing. (Seating himself despond- 
 ently.) This night we belong to the public. Leave me. 
 Walton 
 The thirst for glory so possesses you that you forget 
 all else.
 
 124 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Thirst for glory! (With an expression of sadness.) 
 Leave me, I beg you. 
 
 Walton 
 
 The fact that you once begged of me convincing 
 proof. . . . 
 
 YoRICK 
 
 Rising and approaching Walton. 
 What? . . . What say you? . . . 
 Alice 
 
 Aside, coming out of her stupor. 
 But, is this a dream ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Walton, . . . Mark you that she is here. . . . (Con- 
 trolling himself.) Remember, in my presence no one 
 insults her. — A proof? (Without being able to control 
 himself.) Can it be possible? Where is it? 
 
 Walton 
 Bid your wife show you her hands. 
 
 Alice 
 Do not listen to him. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 (To Walton.) Away! Leave us. 
 
 Walton 
 In one of her hands she holds a paper.
 
 act iii — scene viu 125 
 
 Alice 
 Nay, can you not see that he 's a scoundrel ? 
 
 YORICK 
 
 A paper! (Wanting to go toward his wife, and 
 with difficulty restraining himself. To Walton.) 
 Begone. 
 
 Walton 
 That paper is a letter from her lover. 
 Alice 
 Gripping the letter in her hand. 
 Ah! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Ah ! (Running toward her.) Give me that letter, 
 Alice. 
 
 Controlling himself anew. 
 Alice 
 'Tis no letter. . . . Said he it was a letter? He 
 lies; believe him not. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 He accuses you, justify yourself. If that paper is 
 not a letter, you can with ease confound your false 
 accuser. Do so. 
 
 Alice 
 
 In very truth . . . I'll tell you. . . . This letter . . . 
 
 YORICK 
 
 I must see it.
 
 126 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 Giving way to her despair. 
 You cannot see it. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Cannot? (Giving loose reign to his anger.) Give 
 it me. 
 
 Suddenly controlling her with one hand, and with the 
 other trying to take the paper away. 
 Alice 
 Oh! 
 Making a violent effort she succeeds in getting away 
 from Yorick and runs to the door. Yorick pursues and 
 holds her, throwing the holt. 
 Yorick 
 What would you ? Do you wish to make public my 
 dishonor ? 
 
 Alice 
 Pity me, O thou Mother of the Destitute. 
 
 Walton 
 You cannot thwart him. 'Twere better you should 
 yield. 
 
 Alice 
 
 Who then gives you the right to instruct me ? Force 
 
 him be silent, Yorick. For you, do what you will, you 
 
 are my husband, you have some right to insult me ; but 
 
 let that man insult me not, nor speak to me, nor look at
 
 ACT III — SCENE VIII 127 
 
 me. No woman, not the vilest of the vile, deserves the 
 shaiiie of having one like him dare look at her. (Walton 
 continues looking at her with a smile of triumph.) I 
 bade you look not on me ! Yorick, still he turns his eyes 
 on mine ! 
 
 Blows arc heard on the door. 
 Yorick 
 Do you hear? I must go on the stage. 
 
 Alice 
 Go, go, for God 's sake ! 
 
 Attendant 
 Outside, calling. 
 Yorick ! Yorick ! 
 
 Yorick 
 Make me not stoop to violence with a woman. 
 
 Attendant 
 Yorick, 'tis your entrance ! 
 
 Yorick 
 You hear not what they say? 
 
 Alice 
 I 'm going mad ! 
 
 Yorick 
 My threats are useless? ... 
 
 Author 
 Open, open. . . . The play will halt.
 
 128 TAMAYO T BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Oh, let us end all this ! 
 
 He throws himself frantically on his wife, and struggles 
 
 with her in an attempt to get the letter. 
 
 Alice 
 
 Struggling with Yorick. 
 
 Pity, pity ! 
 
 Yorick 
 The letter ! The letter ! 
 
 Alice 
 No ! You are hurting me ! 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Outside, hammering the door. 
 
 In the name of a thousand devils, will you open ? 
 
 Alice 
 
 Calling him with wild shrieks. 
 
 Shakespeare ! . . . Shakespeare ! . . . 
 
 Yorick 
 That letter! 
 
 Alice 
 My life first ! (Walton seizes the hand in which she 
 holds the letter.) Ah ! 
 
 Walton 
 Taking the letter from her. 
 Behold it !
 
 ACT III — SCENE IX 129 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Give it to me. 
 
 Author, Shakespeare, and Attendant 
 (Outside.) 
 Yorick! , . . Yoriek! . . . 
 Walton 
 Nay (As though stmck hy a sudden idea). Not yet 
 awhile. 
 
 Thrusting the letter in his pocket. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 No? 
 
 Alice 
 What does he say ? 
 
 SCENE NINE 
 
 The Same, Shakespeare, the Author, and the 
 
 Attendant. 
 
 The bolt of the door breaks, yielding under the pressure 
 
 from without, and Shakespeare, the Author, and the 
 
 Attendant precipitately enter. Murmurs and poundings 
 
 are heard. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Walton ! 
 
 Author 
 You have ruined me ! 
 
 Attendant 
 For full two minutes the stage is empty.
 
 130 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In a low tone to Walton. 
 That letter ! 
 
 Walton 
 I said, not yet awhile. 
 
 Author 
 
 What 's come upon you all ? Listen ! Listen ! 
 
 The murmurings and poundings are heard. 
 
 Attendant 
 
 Prompting him with the verses ivhich he is to speak as 
 
 he goes on the stage. 
 
 ''Heaven cometh now at length unto my aid. 
 
 This day I'll ope the prison of my doubt." 
 
 YORICK 
 
 In a low tone, to Walton. 
 His name ! His name, at least ! 
 
 Walton 
 Afterwards. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Yorick, the public waits. 
 
 Attendant 
 The pit is furious ! 
 
 Author 
 Haste, for God 's sake ! 
 
 The three push Yorick toward the door.
 
 ACT III — SCENE IX 131 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Leave me. I am not an actor now ... I am a 
 man. ... A man in agony. Will you give it to me ? 
 Freeing himself, and going toward Walton. 
 Walton 
 It will not leave my hands except to enter yours. 
 Author 
 Seizing him again. 
 Come ! . 
 
 Attendant 
 Prompting him. 
 "Heaven cometli now at length. ..." 
 Shakespeare 
 Before all else comes duty. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Oh, cursed be duty! Cursed be myself! 
 
 He goes out precipitately. Alice whispers to 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Attendant 
 
 To Alice. 
 
 You now. 
 
 Alice 
 
 In a whisper to Shakespeare. 
 
 A letter from Edmund. ... 
 
 Author 
 
 In distress 
 
 Eh ! Nor would she too go on ?
 
 132 tamato y baus — a new drama 
 
 Alice 
 Low to Shakespeare. 
 If my husband sees it . . . 
 
 Shakespeaee 
 Low to Alice. 
 He will not see it. 
 
 Author 
 Madam ! . . . 
 
 Alice 
 Support me, lead me. 
 She goes with the Author, leaning on him. 
 
 Attendant 
 Leafing the manuscript very nervously. 
 And you ready. This scene's a mere breath. 
 
 Walton 
 I know. 
 
 Attendant 
 Ah ! I gave you the letter that you now take out ? 
 
 Walton 
 Yes. 
 
 Attendant 
 I know not where my head is. 
 Exit.
 
 ACT III — SCENE X 133 
 
 SCENE TEN 
 
 Shakespeare and Walton ; a moment later the 
 Author and Attendant. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Walton, that letter does not belong to you. 
 
 Walton 
 Nor to you. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Its owner charges me to recover it from your hands. 
 
 Walton 
 Consider, then, how you'll proceed to get it. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What! (With wrath, which he controls at once.) 
 Nay, Walton, strong and noble hearts feel only pity for 
 another's misfortune. Have pity on Yorick: have pity 
 at least on Alice. Save her, if that still be possible. Her 
 fault is less grave than you imagine, and can easily be 
 remedied. Let us destroy that paper. 
 Walton 
 Yorick has offended me. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Yorick has offended you? Well, take satisfaction 
 for the offense, and the Lord bless you ; but take it nobly. 
 You cannot restore your honor by committing a villainy.
 
 134 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 And if Alice has in no respect offended you, why would 
 you make of her a victim of your rage? To wound at 
 one blow the innocent alike and guilty, is work for sav- 
 ages or madmen. Not even if that poor girl had caused 
 you some annoyance could you take vengeance on her 
 without being vile and cowardly. Men vengeance on 
 men; on women, never. 
 
 Walton 
 Ask me what you will, William, provided you ask 
 me not for the letter. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 And you, you scoundrel, what can I ask of you? 
 Think you me ignorant of your cause of hate 'gainst 
 Yorick? You hate him not because he has insulted you, 
 you hate him because you envy him. 
 Walton 
 With violent emotion. 
 What, you dare to say . . . ? 
 Shakespeare 
 I have called you vile and cowardly. You are a 
 thing still lower : you are a slave of envy ! 
 Walton 
 Of envy — I ? No other insult cuts as deep as that. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Because it is the one you most deserve. Yea : envy 
 holds your soul within its claws: envy, that bewails
 
 ACT III — SCENE X 135 
 
 another's good fortune, and grins to bear one's own 
 mischance ; envy, itself most pitiable of ills, if 'twere 
 not the most loathsome of all vices ; envy, the shame and 
 shackles of the mind, the leprosy of the heart. 
 Another hurst of applause heard. 
 Walton 
 Duty calls me. (Shuddering.) "Well have you said 
 to Yorick: Before all else comes duty. 
 Shakespeare 
 They applaud him. Listen to it! Do you tremble 
 on hearing it? For the envious no noise in the world's 
 so harsh as that of the applause that's paid as tribute 
 to a rival. 
 
 The Author appears, full of joy. 
 Author 
 Joy, joy! The public is ours once more. They 
 could but burst out warmly for those verses: 
 ' ' Solicitude enthralls us as we wait 
 The glory gleaming toward us from afar; 
 What mightier solicitude enshrouds 
 Our shuddering souls that glimpse th' approach of 
 doom ! ' ' 
 How Yorick gave them ! What expression, what intona- 
 tion! (Another hurst of applause is heard.) Another 
 burst, another ! Admirable ! Divine ! 
 Clapping his hands.
 
 136 tamayo y baus — a new drama 
 
 Walton 
 
 Trying to go. 
 
 The scene will halt if you hold me. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Standing before him. 
 
 Give me the letter first. 
 
 Author 
 But Lord! What's wrong with everyone tonight? 
 
 Attendant 
 (Appearing.) Come, you're on in a moment. 
 
 Walton 
 (To Shakespeare.) You mark? (To the Attend- 
 ant.) Go on, I follow you. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Gripping him violently. 
 Soft ! Stay ! 
 
 Author and Attendant 
 Eh ? (Astonished.) 
 
 Shakespeare 
 If need be, I'll tear out your soul along with it. 
 
 Author 
 Pray, Shakespeare, have a care. 
 Walton 
 Taking a resolution. 
 Ha!
 
 ACT in — SCENE X 137 
 
 Shakespeare 
 What! 
 
 Author 
 Looking at the manuscript. 
 But five more lines. . . . 
 
 Walton 
 
 Duty is more powerful than my will. Take it. 
 
 Drawing a letter from a pocket of his costume, and 
 
 giving it to Shakespeare. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 At last ! . . . 
 
 Taking the letter with eagerness. Walton runs toward 
 
 right. 
 
 Quick! 
 
 Author 
 
 Following him. 
 
 Attendant 
 
 Prompting him with the words he must use when he 
 
 goes on the stage. 
 
 ''Behold me here, great lord." 
 
 Walton, the Author, and the Attendant go out.
 
 138 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 SCENE ELEVEN 
 
 Shakespeare 
 He opens the letter with trembling hand. 
 A letter in blank! Ah! (Giving a terrible cry.) 
 Tlie one he was to use on the stage ! . . . And the other 
 — the other one . . . ! Fire of God ! (He runs to the 
 right, blind with rage, and looks through the door.) Oh ! 
 He is already before the public! (Returning.) The 
 serpent has deceived the lion. Then let the lion crush 
 the serpent! 
 
 He goes toward the right, putting his hand on his sword. 
 
 — Curtain. — 
 
 There is but an instant's intermission.
 
 ACT III, PART II — SCENE I 139 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 Salon in the palace of Count Octavio. Table and large 
 arm-chair at right, panoply of arms on each side of the 
 
 stage. 
 
 SCENE ONE 
 
 The Count Octavio (Yorick), Manfredo (Edmund), 
 Beatrice (Alice), Landolfo (Walton), the Stage- 
 Prompter in the shell. At the end of the scene, 
 Shakespeare, the Author, and the Attendant, 
 with actors and employees of the theatre. 
 The Count and Landolfo are talking together without 
 heing heard hy Beatrice and Manfredo, who are on the 
 other side, with terror and grief apparent in their 
 attitude and expression. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Landolfo, in thine absence was my heart 
 Torn with solicitude; thy presence now 
 Doth rend me with a far more cruel dread. 
 That letter ? . . . Hast it ? Answer, and have done. 
 Landolfo (Walton) 
 So be it. 
 
 Giving him Edmund's letter. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Ah! 
 Taking it with lively emotion.
 
 140 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 Landolfo (Walton) 
 (Aside.) Avenged ! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Landolfo, leave me. 
 
 Landolfo makes a deep how and retires. As Walton 
 
 reaches door at left, he stops a moment and looks at 
 
 Yorick with an expression of triumphant malevolence. 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Manf redo ! 
 
 In a low voice, with anguish. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Beatrice ! 
 
 The same. 
 Bk\trice (Alice) 
 
 The hour has come ! 
 Count (Yorick) 
 At last I am to know my paramour. (To Beatrice.) 
 Tremble, thou faithless spouse ! thou ingrate, tremble ! 
 Destroyer of my honor and my peace ! 
 Vain was thy craft — behold the damning proof! 
 He opens the letter and approaches the table, where 
 there are lights. 
 My blood is freezing . . . 
 
 Without daring to look at the letter. 
 
 Let it flame with wrath !
 
 ACT III, PART II — SCENE I 141 
 
 Woe be to him — the infamous wretch — for whom 
 Thou blindly dost defile me ! 
 He fixes his glance on the letter and shudders violently. 
 
 Eh, what's this! 
 
 Overcome hy surprise, he forgets that he is acting, and 
 
 utters what his own emotion really dictates to him, with 
 
 the tone of reality. Edmund and Alice look at him with 
 
 profound surprise. 
 
 Prompter 
 
 "Alas! What do I see! . . ." 
 
 Prompting him aloud, thinking that he has made an 
 
 error, and pounding on the floor with the manuscript in 
 
 order to attract his attention. 
 
 YORICK 
 
 What is this? 
 
 Prompter 
 
 ' ' Alas ! What do I see ! A thousand devils ! ' ' 
 
 Thrusting his head entirely out of the shell, and 
 
 prompting him still more loudly. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 A thousand devils! 
 He speaks these words of the drama as if they were the 
 expression of his own actual grief and amazement. He 
 falls in a heap in the arm-chair that is near the tahlc, 
 covering his face with his hands. Pause. He rises very 
 slowly, looks at Edmund and Alice, then at the audience.
 
 142 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 and remains motionless without knowing what to do, 
 
 leaning against the table. 
 
 All doubts are dead — here is the living truth. 
 
 Declaiming as from memory, ivithout the slightest show 
 
 of interest in what he says. 
 
 Approach, 
 
 To Edmund and Alice, who draw near him full of 
 
 perturbation and fear. 
 
 Look there. 
 
 Showing them the letter, and speaking with new 
 
 vehemence. 
 
 Manpredo (Edmund) and Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Oh, God! 
 Giving a real cry when they see the letter, and 
 retreating in terror. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Earth, swallow us! 
 Again he falls into the chair; contemplates the letter a 
 few moments, and afterwards as tho taking a desperate 
 resolution, rises and goes toward Edmund with threat- 
 ening expression. Before reaching him he stops and 
 looks at the audience, as if to make them understand the 
 conflict of emotions tvhich is overwhelming him. His 
 ga.ze wanders, falls upon Alice, and he runs toward her, 
 but again stops, and returns to the center of the stage, 
 putting his hands alternately to his brow and his heart. 
 Alice and Edmund watch him, dazed.
 
 ACT III, PART li — SCENE I 143 
 
 Prompter 
 "So then 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Aloud, and again hammering the floor with the 
 
 manuscript. 
 "So then 'tis thou who art the villain. ..." 
 Yorick, yielding to the force of circumstances, and not 
 being able to dominate his rage and chagrin, makes his 
 own the flctitious situation of the drama, and applies to 
 Edmund the speech of the character he himself is play- 
 ing. From this moment the dramatic fiction is converted 
 into living reality, and in Yorick as well as in Alice 
 and Edmund, there are merged into one individual the 
 actor and the character portrayed. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 So then 'tis thou who art the villain, thou 
 The treacherous, the perfidious — ay, thou 
 The infamous seducer who dost dare 
 To torture thus the heart of an old man? 
 O wretched waif, who once, in earlier days, 
 Didst owe a shelter to my pitying hand, 
 And found 'st in me a father and a friend? 
 Is't thou who robs me of my precious love? 
 Is't thou who sets a stain upon my brow? 
 Ay, such an act, so brave, so chivalrous, 
 Has made mankind at last amaze the serpent! 
 In faith thou hast done well. By God above.
 
 144 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 He earns such payment who, — piteous fool! — 
 
 Did dream that he should be compassionate, 
 
 And gave his fellow confidence and love. 
 
 Yet nay, not that — tho wounded and brought low, 
 
 I'll cherish no regrets for my pure faith. 
 
 For the deceiver, open shame and scorn ! 
 
 For the deceived, full measure of respect. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 My father . . .! Father . . .! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Dream I? Said he "father"? 
 Thy father, I ? Then pitilessly fall 
 The curses of the father on the son ! 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Oh, Heaven, how horrible ! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 And unto thee, 
 Unhappy girl, what can I say to thee? 
 So voiceless, breathless, fixed, and glassy-eyed, 
 As thou wert icy marble, save thy heart 
 Pulses aloud its wild response to mine ! 
 Thy light of eyes that shamed the westering sun, 
 And, in a fatal moment, fired my heart, 
 Where's now that light, and where that face divine, 
 Blending in perfect harmony of hues 
 The crimson rose, the creamy orange bloom?
 
 ACT III, PART II — SCENE I 145 
 
 Of all thy rare, seductive charms, now lives 
 
 No vestige in thy blanched and lifeless face. 
 
 How swift a change ! How sin breeds ugliness ! 
 
 I found thee — woe is me ! — when, sad and yearning, 
 
 I trod the thorny path of elder age ; 
 
 Thou wert a sunbeam, flashing suddenly, 
 
 A smiling liglit athwart a sombre cloud. 
 
 And, turned from gloom to joy, as one adores 
 
 Celestial angels, now with all my soul 
 
 I humbly thee adored. — Who could believe 
 
 Such loveliness was but a cunning veil 
 
 To mask a heart corrupt? But now no more 
 
 This fair, bewildering candor may conceal 
 
 The shadowy abysses of thy breast. 
 
 Now know I thou art false as thou art fair; 
 
 Now know I that my honor ruined lies ; 
 
 That I should loathe thee — yet I cannot know 
 
 Whether I loathe thee, as my fate commands. 
 
 Or if I love the still. — Ah, woe upon thee ! 
 
 For love made desperate has never pardoned ! 
 
 Seizing her by the hand. 
 If thou wouldst not that fury master me — 
 A stroke inexorable end thy life — 
 Look on me face to face, and die of shame. 
 
 Forcing her to her knees.
 
 146 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 Thy pity ! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Thou wilt cringe and cry in vain; 
 Expect no pity. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 She deserves it well! 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Xor she nor thou I 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 ]My life belongs to thee. 
 To end it swiftly, were a kind of pity. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Mine only was the offense : on me alone 
 Let fall thy fury. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Nay. with base deceit 
 Ye have both wronged me : both shall pay the cost. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 She too ; Thy hand could deal out death to her ! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Fool, tell me, what requital fits the crime 
 For which I slay her, save alone to slay? 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 Nay, come, and suffer death to end my terror. 
 If virtue fails, what should we do with life ?
 
 ACT III, PART 11 — SCENE I 147 
 
 But let my blood restore to thee thine honor — 
 My blood, and nothing else, wash out the stain. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Content to die, if only he may live? 
 
 Thy blood shall pay — and his. — And his the first! 
 
 He takes two swords from the panoply. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Oh, fatal night ! 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 What horror! 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Choose thy blade. 
 Presenting him two swords. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Yea, faith, and in my breast let mine be buried. 
 Suddenly taking a sword and turning the point toward 
 his oivn breast. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 And mine within the bosom of thy mistress. 
 Running toward his wife as if to stab her. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Oh 'God! 
 
 Rushing to place himself before her. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Defend her, then ! Bethink thee now 
 'Tis an avenging hand that threatens her.
 
 148 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 Ah, let me die — in pity let me die ! 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Thou canst not die while yet I live. 
 
 With vehemence, allowing himself to he carried away 
 
 hy his love. 
 
 Count (Y crick) 
 
 So then, 
 Determined to defend her now, thou 'It fight 
 With me? 
 
 Going close to him and speaking precipitately. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Ay, verily. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 With all thy strength, 
 Forgetting who thou art and who am I? 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Thou say'st. 
 
 I swear it. 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 And strive thine uttermost to kill? 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Ah ! — For heaven owed me this. 
 After so great a grief, so great a joy.
 
 ACT HI, PART II — SCENE I 149 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 Consider. . , . 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Nothing ! 
 
 Rejecting her, 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Ah, consider. . . . 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 No! 
 He is thy mortal enemy ! 
 
 Beside himself. 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 God eternal! 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Then loose we all the fury of our hate. 
 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Crime calls for crime. Let Hell approve the deed! 
 
 Yorick and Edmund fight fiercely. 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Ah, hold ! 
 
 Holding Edmund. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Away I 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Beseech thee. . . .
 
 150 TAMATO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 Count (Yorick) 
 
 Stand aside — 
 Thoul't steal his fire. 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Then hear me thou — have mercy ! 
 Passing to Yorick' s side and holding him. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Thou aidest him against me ? 
 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 
 Pitiless fate! 
 Withdrawing in horror from him. 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 Oh, heavens ! 
 Feeling himself wounded. He drops his sword and falls 
 in a heap on the floor. 
 Count (Yorick) 
 Look! 
 To Alice, pointing to Edmund with his sword. 
 Beatrice (Alice) 
 My Jesus! 
 Manfredo (Edmund) 
 
 Pardon, Lord. 
 He dies. Alice runs to him, hends over him, and after 
 touching him, screams and rises aghast. 
 Alice 
 Blood! . . . Edtnund! . . . Blood! ... He has 
 killed him ! . . . Help ! . . . Help !
 
 ACT III, PART II — SCENE I 151 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 Alice 
 
 Shakespeare! . . . Shakespeare! . . . (At the top 
 of her voice, running across the stage.) He has killed 
 him! . . . Help! . . . Help! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 Following her. 
 Shakespeare 
 What have you done ? 
 Coming throtigh door at left. He approaches Edmund, 
 looks at him and touches him. The Author, the Attend- 
 ant, and actors and employees of the theatre, rush out. 
 With amazement they go toward Edmund. Looking on 
 him, they give cries of horror, and all crowd close 
 together around him, some kneeling, others standing. 
 Alice 
 And now kill me ! 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Silence ! 
 Catching and holding her, and placing a hand over her 
 
 mouth. 
 
 Alice 
 
 I loved him ! 
 
 Shakespeare comes from among those who surround 
 
 Edmund and advances toward front of stage.
 
 152 TAMAYO Y BAUS — A NEW DRAMA 
 
 YORICK 
 
 Silence ! 
 
 Alice 
 
 Edmund ! Edmund ! 
 With a sudden move she succeeds in loosing Yorick's 
 hold: she then runs toward Edmund and falls beside 
 him. Yorick follows her and these three personages 
 remain hidden from sight hy those who surround the 
 
 body. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Addressing the public, and speaking breathlessly, with 
 
 great emotion. 
 
 Good masters, as you see, it is impossible to finish 
 the drama that was being played. Yorick, his mind 
 clouded by enthusiasm, has killed the actor who was 
 playing the role of Manfredo. Nor is this the only mis- 
 fortune that Heaven sends us. The famous comedian 
 Walton is also dead. They have just now found him 
 in the street, his breast pierced with a sword-thrust. 
 In his right hand he held a sword. His enemy must 
 have killed him in a combat face-to-face. Pray for the 
 slain. Ay, pray also for the slayers! 
 
 Curtain 
 End of the Play
 
 JC SOUTHFRIJ RtfjiONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 948 735 6
 
 11